


He Don't Mean It

by FunkyMeihem



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Meihem - Freeform, PTSD, Rage, Violence, junkmei, meirat, zaryahog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-04 21:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11563764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyMeihem/pseuds/FunkyMeihem
Summary: Roadhog suffers from PTSD and violent rages, Junkrat tries to keep it a secret from the others, Zarya distrusts the both of them, and Mei learns some hard lessons.





	1. 1

It had gotten late, at some point. There was still activity going on in some areas of the main base, but mostly the buildings and windows were dark and quiet save for the occasional whir of a passing cleaning bot. Across from the base, far across the docking bay, a dark practice field, and a testing ground surrounded by barbed wire and KEEP OUT signs, the garage buildings belonging to the junkers were lit up on the inside, the flashing blue of the television seen from the windows, and the familiar shriek of Junkrat’s wild laughter sounding from within.  
  
They were watching some game show from Japan, which Junkrat had been completely hooked on ever since Genji had turned one on in the common room. It depicted its unlucky participants having to answer questions or perform challenges, and although Mei was fairly sure Junkrat wasn’t even reading the English translations, he laughed uproariously whenever one of them failed. The price of failure was severe and included frying pans being dropped onto heads, blow darts in the rear, pies smashed into the face, and (Junkrat’s particular favorite) being hit in the testicles by a cartoon glove on a stick, wielded by a man dressed in a pig costume. He had already been reduced to hyperventilation several times that evening, and Mei had to hit pause multiple times to allow him to recover.  
  
Roadhog sat in his chair, arms folded over his immense belly and occasionally rumbling his deep “Huh-huh-huh-huh…” chuckle or pointing to the screen. It seemed he also enjoyed the man in the pig outfit.  
  
Mei lay wrapped in a blanket on the ragged sofa, head resting on Junkrat’s thigh. She wasn’t as taken by the slapstick as her companions, but the absolute bizarre situations they put their contestants in amused her more than it should have. And she was fairly sure that if she was on such a game show, she would have won the contest of trying to hold the most noodles in her cheeks, hands down. But it was getting late, and Junkrat finally took notice of her little glances towards the door as she started to unwrap herself.  
  
He reacted as dramatically as ever, winding his good arm around her and pulling her back into his lap. “Noooooo!”  
  
She sighed. “Jamison, it’s almost one in the morning.”  
  
“Exactly! S’dark out there! Who knows what might be lurking out in the dark, ya know? And you’re what, at least ten kilometers from the dorms? A hundred? Probably more. I can’t let ya go out there, darl, for your own safety.” He wrapped her up in his boa constrictor like grip, even as she sat with her face slightly smushed on one side and her eyes half lidded. “Come on, might as well stay the night.”  
  
She hesitated. The junkers’ makeshift dorm areas weren’t exactly what she was used to, and she’d only spent a few nights here before. They mostly lived in out of the converted storage garage that Roadhog had commandeered upon arrival. In her mind, it still looked more garage than house, and even though they had a couch and television and even a little makeshift kitchen, Hog’s motorcycle and a veritable warehouse full of tools and scrap parts sat just behind them on the other side of the main room. Junkrat’s room was literally a windowless spare supply closet that they’d shoved a bed and dresser in for the nights he didn’t sleep in his trailer, and she had no idea what lay beyond Roadhog’s bedroom door…not to mention, there was the memory of the first time she’d ever walked into their bathroom that still gave her nightmares…  
  
Junkrat nuzzled himself adoringly against her bun, taking no notice of her hesitation, nor her snowflake pin jabbing him in the forehead. “We can head right on t’bed if you’re tired, and then you can rack off during proper morning, eh? Maybe after brekkie? Whaddayasay?”  
  
“Well…Is that okay, Mr. Roadhog?”  
  
Roadhog was already lifting himself out of the sagging armchair, hiking up his pajama pants. He turned his masked face briefly to Mei, then tilted it very slightly to the side, half lifting one enormous shoulder. “Mm,” was all he said, and Junkrat lit up at what must have been a relatively enthusiastic approval. The giant junker nodded to them both, then turned and lumbered slowly towards his room, the door shutting gently behind him a moment later.  
  
Mei nodded and relented, and went about prying Junkrat’s arms from her once more. “All right, all right. But I’ll need to head back early tomorrow morning. And if you start kicking, I’m moving to the couch again.”  
  
“I’ll be on me best behavior!”  
  
She turned off the gameshow, yawning widely as she trailed Junkrat’s limping gait towards his tiny sleeping quarters. He quickly shoved a pile of blankets into some semblance of order, offering her the cleanest ones, before sitting down on the squeaky mattress and prying off his mechanical arm and peg leg, tossing them carelessly onto the floor nearby. Still, even with one working leg, he managed to leap into the air and came down on the bed with force, his lanky body landing on one side with his head propped up on one arm, waggling his brows. “Ya knoooow, we coooould…”  
  
She smirked at him, setting her glasses aside. “No, I’m tired. Not even the pose is going to work right now.”  
  
“Aw.”  
  
She climbed in after him, ignoring his grumbling and pulling herself up to nestle into the warmth of him. She’d probably wake up overheated later, but there was nothing better for falling asleep than the furnace that was his body. His grouching finally ceased as he pulled her up against his chest, breathing in the scent of her hair as his scorched lashes fluttered shut and his breathing became deep, and it was not long before the both of them drifted off together.

  
  
***

* * *

  
  
It wasn’t the heat that woke her up, but a loud clanking noise she heard somewhere either in her dreams or outside the door. She moaned a little and pulled herself away, her body clammy and a bit sweaty where she had been pressed against the slumbering Junkrat. She needed water, nice cold water, and staggered up off the bed to grab her glasses, quietly opening the door to make her way to the sink.  
  
But something made her pause. The living room was dimly lit by a single sputtering bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. And over on the other side of the work area, stood the slightly blurry, familiar figure of Roadhog. It couldn’t have been anyone else but him, anyway. He was over seven feet of imposing fat and muscle, and for some reason he was just…standing there…fully armored and clothed in the middle of the night, with his back to her and head slightly bowed. She sat lingering in the open doorway, rubbing at her eyes behind her lenses. Her brain was still foggy from slumber, but something about all this seemed off. He hadn’t taken notice of her yet, and didn’t seem to be working late or doing much of anything. Just…standing in the dark? What was happening?  
  
She stood there as well, frozen and unsure of what to do. Maybe it was just the remnant of a bad dream, but there was an unpleasant prickling under her skin, some instinct started to nip and bite at her senses. Something seemed wrong.  
  
Licking her dry lips, she took a step forward. Roadhog still loomed before one of the windows, though she couldn’t tell if he was looking out. Starting to lift a cautious hand, she exhaled a breathless little noise before starting to offer a soft “M-Mr? Ro-”  
  
She saw Roadhog’s head move slightly, barely starting to tilt back towards her. But then there was suddenly cold metal clamping across her face, digging almost painfully into her jaws as it latched over her mouth. She was being dragged backward, taken right off her feet, into the darkness of the room behind her. She didn’t even have time to kick, trying to inhale against the metallic hand as that familiar pair of arms wrapped around her. She wrenched her head to the side and looked up, eyes wide, and could barely make out the features of Junkrat’s face just above hers. He was similarly wide-eyed, irises burning red-yellow and little veins of pink visible against the sclera’s white, bloodshot, above a clenched jaw bared with suddenly very sharp-looking teeth.  
  
He slammed the both of them back into the far wall of the tiny dark bedroom, still holding her tightly enough that she realized it hurt, and she made a little muffled noise of confusion and protest. “Mmgmf!? Hmmh!”  
  
He slid downward with his hand still clamped over her mouth, watching the open doorway. When she tried to speak, he turned his bared teeth down to her, eyes still blazing and voice a low hiss. “Quiet! No, quiet! Shut up!”  
  
She narrowed her gaze, though her brow furrowed soon after. Junkrat had always spoken rather harshly, with liberal use of Australian slang and no small amount of creative cursing. But never, not in all their time together, had he ever spoken harshly to _her_. But he’d just snarled for her to shut up and looked on the verge of panic. Something was definitely wrong here, no time for hurt feelings now. She twisted a little in his grasp but remained silent, and he finally released her mouth, allowing her to gasp in a quick breath as he warily sidled forward, peeking out of the door before trying to shut it as quietly as possible, wincing at the click of the knob before reaching under his mattress, snapping on a tiny flashlight.  
  
She expected an explanation, but merely received a hastily whispered, “Y’need to go.” He was still barely looking at her, leaving her to nurse her bruised jaw as he reached under the bed. “You gotta leave, right now.”  
  
“Jamison? What’s happening?” She reached down to touch his shoulder, but was quickly shrugged off. “Jamie, please?”  
  
“Nothing! Ya just gotta leave!” he snapped, seeming taking no notice of her distressed expression. He found what he was looking for under his bed, pulling out one of his spiked traps and a length of chain ending in a small metal clasping hook. “I’m gonna open the doors, you get outta here, got it?”  
  
“Jamie-”  
  
“I said fuck off!” He nearly snarled, turning fully upon her. This time he faltered, as he found Mei staring back at him and even shrinking away, like he was almost about to strike her. His snarl fell into a grimace, panicked gaze turning downcast. “N-no, love, I didn’t mean…I’d never-”  
  
They both paused at the sound of heavy footsteps and the jingle of metal outside. Junkrat went abruptly quiet, spreading both arms and placing himself between Mei and the door, teeth baring once more. Harsh words or no, it was clear that he was intent on protecting her from whatever it was that was outside…protecting her from Roadhog? The heavy footfalls thudded away from them, and Mei breathed out, hurrying to pull on her boots. “Jamie, what’s wrong? Did something happen to him?”  
  
“No! S’fine, it’s just…you gotta get outta here when you get the chance, understand?”  
  
She looked unsure. “Is it Roadhog? Maybe we can get to the door without him noticing? Then we can go get Winston or Angela, maybe they can help-”  
  
“I’m staying, you’re leaving. And you don’t tell nobody nothing, hear it?” He tensed, gaze still wary. “This ain’t their business.”  
  
“I’m not going to just leave you here with- Would you please just tell me what’s wrong?”  
  
He bit his lip, the shadows from the tiny light exaggerating all the worst parts of his strange narrow face, both angry and grief-stricken at once. He made one of his little noises of frustration, a high-pitched rattle he could barely muffle before answering. “Look, sometimes, Hog forgets where he is. Arright?”  
  
Mei was silent for a rather long time before whispering, “Forgets? What does that mean?”  
  
“I don’t fuckin’ _know_ , Mei! He just forgets where he is and he gets in a bad way! It ain’t his fault!”  
  
“What does he…do?”  
  
“Nothin’! I said not to fuckin’ worry about it! I’ve got it under control!”  
  
There was that anger again flaring its ugly head again, but this time Mei didn’t back down. Things were starting to fall into place. “Does he forget who people are too? Jamison, does he hurt you? That time when you were ‘sick’ for a few days and you came back and were all bruised and hurt…That wasn’t an accident like you said, was it? Was it because-”  
  
“It ain't like that! It ain’t his fault! Me and him, we’re mates! Even if he don’t know it sometimes. We've always handled it. I didn't...I'd never let ya over if I'd thought...Usually he acts weird before it. But he always gets himself back to normal, y’just gotta wai-”  
  
There were footsteps again, and the both of them went silent as Junkrat clicked off the flashlight. The soft glow coming in under the door flickered softly, a shadow passing in front of it. There was the familiar sound of loud, wheezing breath, grinding through the mechanical air filters of a mask. Once again, Junkrat narrowed his eyes and hunched low in front of Mei, back arching like an anxious cat as the smaller woman peeked out from behind his bony ribcage, both of them locking their focus on the closed door and holding their breath.  
  
Junkrat was already moving when Roadhog’s fist tore through the cheap plywood with a loud crash. The door didn’t stand a chance, splintering and cracking as Hog’s immense body followed his fist, stepping through the wreckage as the barrier barely proved an afterthought. Junkrat launched forward in swift retaliation, slamming full force into the larger junker and barely halting his forward momentum. Rat’s smaller chain swung around his partner’s neck and he pulled it taut…but Roadhog barely seemed to notice its choking grip, enormous hand shooting forward to grasp Rat by the entire scrawny torso, squeezing cruelly so that the younger man uttered a painful rasping wheeze as the breath was forced from his crushed lungs, before he was haphazardly tossed over Hog’s shoulder and out of sight into the main room.  
  
What was most unnerving was how silent Roadhog was despite his rampage. She distantly heard Junkrat’s snarling and scrambling somewhere behind him, but Roadhog was as quiet as he normally was, save for that filtered breathing of his. He tried to squeeze the rest of the way into the closet-sized room, as Mei pressed herself up against the wall away from him, his thick fingertips nearly brushing her front. Then his hand dropped suddenly, and even his unfathomable weight was pulled backward. The chain was still wrapped around his neck, and Junkrat had thrown the other end around one of the garage’s metal weight-bearing poles. His lanky arms pulled, and the leverage was at least enough to half drag him back out the door. “Hog! Hog, it’s me, mate! Come on, I got ya! We don’t gotta-”  
  
Roadhog turned his masked face towards his partner, and Mei could only watch as he lurched after the other junker, the both of them moving out of sight. She heard a crash, saw the chain that had been around his neck go slack, then taut again. And as she finally gathered her wherewithal to react and run for the door, she heard a noise of pain and saw Roadhog grasping onto the chain around his neck and pulling, Junkrat’s grasp on it causing him to stagger forward…directly into Roadhog’s waiting grip. There was a brief wrestling match where Junkrat was a whirlwind of gangly limbs and biting teeth, but he was overpowered within seconds and pinned against the dirty floor, as his bodyguard knelt over him and brought his spiked fist into Rat’s face.  
  
“ _Liú xià tā yīgè rén_! Mr. Roadhog, stop! Please, it’s us!” Mei flung herself onto his arm, pulling with all her strength to stop him before the next blow. But she was shaken off with barely a thought, tossed aside and sent staggering. She heard the sickening crunch of another fist against bone, and in desperation, searched for something, anything that she could use. Without Snowball or her endothermic blaster in hand, her fingers curled around the next best thing- a dirty frying pan from the kitchen table, crusted with old stir-fry. She leapt back into the brawl and swung it with all her might, and there was a satisfying clang as it landed broadside against Roadhog’s head.  
  
To her relief, it seemed to have stunned him, his fist still raised as he paused. Slowly, he turned his pig-masked face towards her, still kneeling over the bloody and battered younger junker on the ground.  
  
She lifted her pan again menacingly. “Get off of him! I’m warning you! Don’t make me do this!”  
  
Junkrat coughed up a mouthful of red on the ground, reaching out a hand in warning as Roadhog started to lift off him. “Mei!”  
  
Roadhog lunged for her, and Mei swung. She felt the pan hit its mark, and this time, nothing happened. He barely seemed to notice the impact, and before she could recover to swing again…Roadhog’s fist swung too.  
  
Pain blossomed in the side of her skull, and it felt like her brain was being broken in two and sloshing like a cracked egg. She was dimly aware that she was airborne, her prone body sailing across the room, and she vaguely thought that she must have been hit with quite severe force to cause it. Her shattered glasses spun in the air after her, little shards of her lenses twinkling merrily in the light. How strange. She had been watching game shows and laughing with this man only hours earlier. And now…this? She didn’t even feel the landing, even when her back slammed into a rack of tools and she went skidding across the floor in a loud metal clatter of wrenches and screws.  
  
She lay there, her vision fogged with black around the edges, unable to move. She heard someone roaring her name, saw that Junkrat had managed to rally and was fighting Roadhog once more, though she could only make out a chaotic melee of body parts, and Junkrat snarling and snapping like a rabid thing. But despite his best efforts and true to their namesakes, there was little that a rat could do against an angry swine. He took several punishing blows from all directions before being carelessly pummeled back onto the ground again, and Roadhog leaned down, winding his bloodied fist back once more.

But before he could swing another blow, Junkrat sprang back up. One of his steel traps lay where the younger junker had fallen, and it sprang up and clamped shut on Roadhog’s leg as the larger man bellowed in enraged pain. There was the clank of metal and its chain winding around a nearby pole and she somewhat expected the sound of accompanying explosions, but for once the self proclaimed ‘mad demolitionist’ seemed loath to use them. Rat managed to kick his way out of his errant bodyguard’s range, scurrying over to pluck Mei up and out of the wreckage in the garage, stumbling with her in both arms. Her head spun as she was hauled across the room before being unceremoniously dropped, as the both of them collapsed behind the couch. She could feel herself swaying even when trying to sit.  
  
Rat’s face was bruised and bloodied, starting to swell, and she could see he was missing his gold tooth when he spoke. “Don’t be mad! Don’t  be mad at ‘im! He don’t mean it!”  
  
Gingerly, she lifted her fingers to her temple that was still radiating with pain, and they too came away red. “We n-need to go…get help…”  
  
“No! He’ll come back, always does, I just gotta wait it out and stay outta his way!” His voice was high pitched and desperate,  trying to wipe the blood away from her face with his fingers and only managing to smear it more. “You need to leave, get back safe to your room, arright? And then…Ya can’t tell nobody, arright? It’s gonna be okay. Here, I’ll distract him, you head for the door-” He paused as there was the screech of twisting metal. Roadhog was pulling at his leg in the trap, and it was already starting to give way.  
  
“Jamison! He’ll kill you! We have to go!”  
  
There was nothing they could do to hope to stand against someone like Hog, and with Mei involved, things had gone even more out of control than usual. Junkrat looked out of his mind, his eyes darting wildly between his frenzied partner and the injured woman. Seemingly coming to a decision, he snatched her up once more, throwing himself forward into a staggering run as he went for the door. “Gotta make sure he don’t get out! You gotta leave! You gotta-”  
  
They hadn’t even reached the door when there was another booming noise. And this time, it didn’t come from Roadhog’s rampage. Someone was knocking on the door, and Junkrat nearly fell over as his foot scrabbled for balance and his peg almost went out from under him, still clutching Mei against his chest as he went skidding to a stop. It was loud, clearly someone using their entire fist…and it sounded like a large fist. The sound caused even Hog to pause, lifting his masked head slowly. There was another flurry of angry knocking, so hard that it seemed like the metal itself would start to dent inward, then a muffled voice.  
  
“Впусти меня!”  
  
Mei’s eyes widened, flailing her way out of Junkrat’s grasp even as he struggled to keep hold of her, sputtering a “What the fuck- Wait! Wait, don’t let ‘em in! Don’t let-”  
  
She dropped to the floor, her vision still blurred and colors smearing to one side as she listed dangerously to her left, but managed to dive for the control panel to the main entry. Even as Junkrat leapt after to stop her, she slammed a fist down onto it, as the door beeped and hissed open.  
  
A large figure loomed up out of the darkness outside, stepping into the yawning entryway and the dim light within, illuminating the track suit, bright pink hair, and angry features of one extremely displeased Russian woman.


	2. 2

Zarya looked down at the bloodied pair briefly before her gaze darted up at the scraping of metal and cement, as Roadhog reached down and finally wrenched free of the trap, clenching it in one fist as it snapped into bits of flying scrap. Setting her jaw, she cracked her neck to one side before shoving Junkrat and Mei aside, dropping low into a wrestling stance as the enormous junker turned to face her. Narrowing her gaze, she lifted one hand and beckoned with a rude gesture of two fingers. “Борьба со мной, свинья! Come, pig!”  
  
This time, Roadhog was faced with a direct challenge, something that didn’t scuttle around him or run away or uselessly plead for mercy. He straightened to his full massive height and shook himself back and forth, gut wobbling as he uttered a deep bellow before throwing himself at this new target. Zarya was ready for him, diving forward as well, and Mei could have sworn the ground shook and a shockwave went through the room as some of the most massive powerhouses on the team finally clashed together.  
  
The arrival of Zarya changed things. She could actually stand against him where Junkrat and Mei had both failed. Without her glasses, Mei could only see shapes and blurs of their forms melding together; thrashing, punching, battling one another with brutal strength. She heard the raw sound of fists hitting flesh, heard Zarya’s scraping gasp as the air was knocked from her crushed chest, the groan of Roadhog when her thick arm was wrapped around his throat. There was quite a bit of Russian cursing, and the strange animalistic grunting and gnashing from her opponent, with Hog still not saying a word.  
  
For a moment, Mei thought even Zarya didn’t stand a chance against such a relentless onslaught. And Roadhog was strong, but instinct alone (while terrifying to behold) could not stand against someone else who was of a mind to use it against him. Zarya staggered free from him, dropping her stance and waiting. With no hesitation, he rushed her, metal-clad boots slamming into the ground with every step. But she was ready for him, and turned suddenly to the side as he set upon her, in a wrestling move designed just for such a heavy opponent. She went low, both arms suddenly clasping around his impossibly wide belly, fingers denting into his scarred hide. His momentum kept him moving forward and Zarya moved under him…and lifted.  
  
Mei stood shellshocked, and Junkrat’s jaw dropped open as he watched. Roadhog was lifted into the air, his balance thrown off as Zarya strained to keep control of them both. For a moment it seemed like some bizarre ballet, with the giant junker poised above her with his arms flailing outward, hovering just above the woman lifting him up like a spectacle for all to see. And then, with another booming crash, he was thrown over and down again, smashing face-first into the concrete and crushed with his own enormous weight.  
  
Her breathing was labored and her stamina seemed to be flagging as her stunned opponent started to rise once more, but she caught Roadhog’s arm with her own, jerking it until it bent unnaturall as she positioned herself behind him, pulling until the bone strained and threatened to break. He made a strange noise and dropped to one knee with a rattling moan, as Zarya leaned down with her own knee pressed into his spine, teeth gritting as she hissed something to him that Mei could not hear.  
  
Junkrat vaulted past her, his own fists raised in a parody of a boxing pose and started to dance around the two warily. “Oi! Oi, get off, ya great shithouse cunt! That’s enough! I mean it, I’ll-”  
  
Zarya turned on him with a look that made him cringe and scuttle backward several steps, before jamming her grip forward once more. Hog groaned in pain as his other knee gave out and down he went. He landed awkwardly, his gut making him roll forward to slam back onto his face and chest, as Zarya struggled to keep hold. “Rat Man!” she snapped, when he made another move towards her. “Be useful! For once! You take that chain of yours and tie him down, or I break him the rest of the way!”  
  
Junkrat looked unsure for a moment, but finally was spurred into action, hurrying forward to retrieve more clasping chains and moving to bind his own partner, wrapping around his limbs and throat, secured around the garage’s metal beams and poles. By the time the two were done, Roadhog was bound in a sitting position against the column. There must have been hundreds of pounds of chain weighing Roadhog down, but when Zarya finally went to ease off of him, everyone still held their breath.  
  
He pulled at the chains, flexing both arms. The metal creaked and squealed as the links strained and twisted, but held. The pig mask slowly lifted, its blank lenses staring unseeing at Zarya, and the floor nearly rumbled with baritone as Roadhog spoke.  
  
“You.”  
  
Zarya stood over him, glaring down. “Me.”  
  
“…I’ll kill you.”  
  
For a moment she stared, then uttered a bitter little chortle. “Many greater than you have tried, pig,” she replied, before turning on her heel and stepping away, pressing a finger to one nostril and snorting blood onto the floor dismissively. She sent another icy look to Junkrat, then rounded to Mei, concern written on her face as she leaned over to inspect the smaller woman, frowning at something Mei couldn’t see before grasping her arm. “They hurt you? Come, pingvin, we are leaving.”  
  
Mei held the side of her head, which still felt like a bell that had been rung a little too hard. “W-wait, we can’t just leave them here…”  
  
Zarya gave another humorless laugh before tugging on her arm to try and drag her after. “Oh, we can.”  
  
Junkrat frowned, moving to take Mei’s other hand and hold her there. “Hold the fuckin’ phone, where you’d even come from, how’d you even know to come in here? Were you out there spyin’ on us?”  
  
Zarya tightened her grip a little, trying to urge Mei forward yet again. “Why would I bother to spy on the likes of junkers? I was just…nearby. Overheard.”  
  
Junkrat pulled her back again. “Like hell you expect me to believe that! You just _happen_ t’show up in the middle of the fuckin’ night, on our turf!”  
  
This was not exactly doing wonders for her crushing headache, and Mei yanked both arms back towards her chest out of both their grasps. “I am not a dog toy, this is not helping! Jamison, Zarya just saved us, we should be grateful she showed up when she did!” Junkrat scowled grotesquely and Zarya smirked, though it faded when Mei turned to her next. “But…how…did you show up? How did you know?”  
  
Zarya glanced back to the door. “I was…nearby.”  
  
Mei eyed her. “Zarya?”  
  
“Sometimes I cannot sleep. Sometimes I walk on practice field to clear my head. Sometimes I have heard the junkers fighting, the pig beating the rat. And this night, I heard it again, but I knew you might be there tonight.” She turned a venomous gaze to Junkrat. “But I was too late to stop them hurting you.”  
  
Junkrat glared back. “Oi! You got some goddamn gall, you have. I’ve never laid a finger on ‘er! She’s my…She’s _mine_ , arright! I’d blow up the whole world for her! Never would let her-”  
  
“What? Let her get hurt?!” Zarya gestured to the blood smeared on Mei’s face. “You cannot even stop the mad pig from hurting you, much less her! Wild junkmen out of control. You are dangerous here. First omnics, then mercenaries…tch, so this is the new Overwatch. You should never have been here in the first place!”  
  
Junkrat stretched up to his full height to loom over her, though his twig-like frame seemed to do little in the way of intimidation. “Oh, you don’t wanna be fuckin’ comparing me to an omnic, russki. Hog n’ me, you got no idea how we do things-”  
  
“Ha! I have heard how you do things! Only surprised they did not wheel you out dead in the morning!”  
  
“How about I wheel you out dead in the morning!” Junkrat spat.  
  
“How about you try?” she growled back.  
  
“Dipstick!”  
  
“Урод!”  
  
“Oh my gosh, _really_? Right now? Both of you stop it!” Mei glowered and wiped at her still-bloodied face, stepping between the two and holding both arms out when she saw the aggression was continuing and they were starting to lean too close to another. She pushed the growling Junkrat back a bit, brows furrowing slightly as she turned to Zarya. “And you. You…knew this was happening?”  
  
The larger woman paused, voice stuttering a little as if realizing she had said a little too much. “I have just…overheard, some nights. Not often. Like I said.”  
  
“But you knew.”  
  
“…I…maybe was not sure…”  
  
“You knew,” Mei repeated.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You never reported it? None of you saw fit to tell anyone? And nobody saw fit to tell me?”  
  
“It was…not my business what they do to each other.” Zarya frowned, looking away. “And I warned you that they are dangerous men, not good.”  
  
Mei’s eyes narrowed as she gestured to the bound form of Roadhog sill sitting chained to the column, surrounded by spatters of blood from every one of them, her voice still quiet but edged with resentment and a tinge of rapidly growing anger. “So…Neither of you reported that one of our teammates suffers from blackouts and violent episodes? And Mr. Roadhog himself didn’t think that was pertinent information either? None of you thought that this might be our business to know.”  
  
Junkrat, who had been looking more and more smug as Zarya faltered, looked chagrined once more when Mei refused to meet his gaze. He held up both hands quickly and hunched down to her level, going to pet at her shoulders in a placating little massage. “I-it ain’t like all that, darl! He don’t mean it. Like I said, this one just didn’t have no warning. I never would have let ya over if I knew he might-”  
  
“You _knew_ he might!” Mei interrupted so harshly that Junkrat visibly cringed and jerked away from her, hands up. “And you still invited me to stay here! Apparently all of you knew this was happening, this whole time! How many times has this happened? Why did nobody say anything!”  
  
Now both Zarya and Junkrat looked about awkwardly, seemingly unable to face the rage of the woman that seemed almost comically tiny compared to the rest of them, her small fists clenched and her posture almost aggressive as she stared them down. Junkrat at least made the attempt, opening both arms in trepidation and offering a gap-toothed, swollen-on-one-side smile. “H-how about we all just take a breather! Come on, darl, maybe we-”  
  
“Don’t you ‘darl’ _me_ , Jamison Fawkes! We almost died! We almost died because you just couldn’t be honest! You couldn’t tell me? After everything we…I trusted you. I trusted you both. But apparently you don’t trust anyone. Including me.”  
  
The junker sputtered, spittle flying from his lips, eyes darting in a manic fashion. Trying to handle any social situation he couldn’t blow his way out always made him nervous. “No! No, it’s not like that! Trust you with my life, swear it. And, well! There’s a lot going on here you don’t know about, lovey. Roadhog and me, we- I mean, a lot going on! It’s a whole ‘big picture’ sort of thing, you know, seeing the forest through the trees, sands on the beach, uh, raining cats and dogs, and…What the heck was I saying? Wait, let me try again-”  
  
Zarya gave a derisive little snort of a laugh at his predicament, but straightened quickly into almost military-like posture when Mei turned upon her next, clenching her lips in a thin line.  
  
“T _ā māde niǎo!_ And you! Zarya, I thought you would know better!”  
  
Zarya looked down at her hands. “It…was not my place to interfere when-”  
  
“When you heard two of the people on your team in danger? Two people you knew were my friends? And you just walked away and left them. Because I wasn’t there with them. Just because you don’t like them, you’d leave them to possibly die?!” Mei’s voice cracked on the last word.  
  
The larger woman remained stone-faced even when chastised. She seemed unsure of what to say, gaze still downcast, before saying giving up and saying nothing.  
  
Mei whirled upon Roadhog, who still was sitting chained up, head down and his breath still wheezing softly in the background. He still didn’t seem to be entirely with them, and didn’t look up. Finding no reason to yell at him when she knew he couldn’t answer, she huffed and puffed a bit before simply turning away. She felt Junkrat’s mechanical hand on her shoulder again, but angrily shoved it off, and he didn’t try again. Her jaw was set, tears threatening to squeeze from the corners of her eyes, and she sniffed loudly before spinning about on her heel. The haughty motion was a poor decision, and she stumbled slightly as her head spun once more. But for pride’s sake, she recovered quickly, stomping one boot in a very final motion before abandoning the whole situation, heading out the door.  
  
Junkrat and Zarya stood together in the open doorway and stared after her as she stormed off into the darkness.  
  
“How could you all be so…so… _IRRESPONSIBLE_?!”


	3. 3

“Well. It seems now we are both in dog house.”  
  
Zarya was, to both of their surprises, the first one to speak. Junkrat was too busy staring dumbfounded after Mei’s retreating figure, until even his keen night vision could no longer make her out and she was truly gone. A distressed little gurgling noise was the only sound he could seem to wrest from his throat, while the larger woman next to him wiped at some of the crusted blood below her nose before she sighed and folded her massive arms.  
  
“I hate it when she is mad at me,” she said, sounding surprisingly resigned. “She can hold massive grudge for weeks.”  
  
The verbal dam holding back the junker’s words finally seemed to break, and they came out as a torrent. “Ya think I don’t know it, russki?! Oh, this is bad. This is real bad. It’s over, ain’t it? I’ve come a gutser.” He dragged both hands down his swollen and battered face, black nails digging into his bruised cheeks. “It’s like you said, she can hold a grudge. But this is more’na grudge. She ain’t gonna forgive me, is she? This isn’t like those other times, like when I leave the toilet seat up or forget when the mission dates are or when I put that confetti bomb in her undies drawer. She’s mad as a cut snake! This is gonna be Goodnight Irene!”  
  
“Er,” Zarya frowned at him unsurely, unable to really keep track of his rapid train of thought or his Australian slang. “…Yes?”  
  
“I knew it! And not just her, they’re gonna come take away me best mate too! Gonna take him away, reprogram him in the head. Not gonna let ‘em! I knew we’d have to scarper even from this place, one of these days! Don’t worry, Roadie, I’m gonna get you outta here even if I gotta roll your big arse the whole way through.” He limped over towards one of the messy shelves, heavily favoring his right side with the ribs he still wasn’t sure were broken or not. They felt broken. It hurt to breathe, but there were more important things to worry about. Like pulling out a battered brown suitcase from under it and starting to shove seemingly random bits and pieces of metal and tools into it. “I knew goin’ legit was never going to work. What about Mei, though? Ya know what, w-we can grab her too. Swing by, grab her up. She’ll be mad at first, but she’ll understand! She’s real good at understandin’, eventually. It’ll be like old times. We’ll grab her and go, head out on our own again.”  
  
Zarya rubbed the bridge of her nose with two fingers in clear exasperation. “Are you suggesting in front of me, that you are going to kidnap my friend after almost killing her already?”  
  
Junkrat guffawed, pausing from shoving things into his get-away kit. “Well, when you say it like THAT it sounds a little harsh!” He thought for a moment, tapping at his pointed chin. “Okay…I’m startin’ to think that things might have gotten a bit away from me, here.”  
  
“You could try saying sorry, if you even know the concept. That is what good people do. But then, you would not know, you are not good people. I do not know why she tolerates junkers like you,” she sneered down at him. “Talking of kidnapping her when you should be groveling for forgiveness?”  
  
There was a low moan from Roadhog, who shuffled beneath the layers of chains around him. Junkrat tilted his head to the side, brightening slightly. He snapped his mechanical fingers, a spark popping between the metal digits. “Groveling! That’s an ace idea. Who can stay mad at a grovelin’ rat, right? That’ll melt her frozen heart for sure! Here, sounds like Roadie’s starting to wake up. Uh. Well, you already proved you won’t rat on us, even if that’s mostly because you’re a bit of a fuckhead. Anyhow, the chains should hold and you’re a brick shithouse, you stay here just in case he tries to get out again. You can take him, right? I’ll go after Mei!”  
  
“No you don’t!”  
  
She lunged, but the junker slipped right out of her grasp like a wriggling fish, somehow managing to vault up and out of her arms in a wiggle of limbs and a customary storm of cackling. She may have been able to best his frenzied bodyguard and there was no doubting her strength, but strength mattered little when trying to hold onto Junkrat and was like trying to wrestle with a greased-up weasel. Before she could try again, he was already out the door, laughing and flailing his way out into the night. With a low curse under her breath, she righted herself against the door frame and almost moved to follow him. But the rattle of chains behind her made her pause. Roadhog was trying to move again, thrumming a low baritone noise as his massive arms strained at his bindings. She tensed, sending one last glare after Junkrat before resolutely slamming her hand onto the door controls. They bolted shut with a mechanical whir and the clank of its locks, and she stared the enormous junker down from across the room.  
  
The irritating rat man was right about one thing, at least. This Roadhog could not be allowed to get loose, and she was the only one able to stop him. At least until Mei would no doubt be bringing the cavalry to both handle the transgressions of the junkers, and for her to be chastised and punished for being foolish enough to ever get involved.  
  
The beast in the pig mask was looking at her. The dark, blank lenses may have hidden his eyes and whatever else lay beneath, but she knew he was looking at her. She saw the faint movement of his fingers down by his sides, sinew and bone tightening and clenching into a fist that was no doubt locked around her neck in whatever dark thoughts such a man must have harbored inside all that silence. She lifted her chin, merely stepping forward and staring down at him without fear, gaze narrowed.   
  
“So, svin’ya. Now it is just you and me…”  
  
***

* * *

  
  
Junkrat scampered across the dark base, the metal clatter of his peg leg obnoxiously loud as he made his way through the common areas and towards the dorms. He was more than relieved to see that Mercy’s clinic area remained dark. Maybe he still had time to change her mind before she woke everyone up and set the whole damn base against his best friend. He was less heartened to see that she really had been bleeding more severely than he’d thought, and a pang of uncharacteristic guilt rippled through him when he saw there were drips and splotches of red that marked her trail all the way down the halls towards her little room. Perhaps it was a good thing he’d come to check on her after all.  
  
The sharp rap of metal against metal rattled her doors. There was no answer at first, and his next knock was a bit more frantic, leaning up against it to whisper a loud, rasping “Mei! Mei, you arroight in there?”  
  
There was the very muffled sound of a beep within, and a moment later the door whooshed open in front of him. She had made an attempt to scrub away the blood from her head wound, though her pajama shirt was still sopped with dark liquid on one side, and she was holding a baggie of ice to her temple. She didn’t seem surprised to see him, but didn’t seem particularly happy about it either. When she spoke, her voice was still cold and dangerously formal. “…Mr. Fawkes.”  
  
So he’d been relegated back to the icily polite use of his last name. Owch. At least with his newly mangled features, it wasn’t hard to disguise his wince. He managed a lopsided grin, waving both dirty hands. “Don’t worry! I ain’t here to kidnap you or anything nefarious!”  
  
She squinted at him. “Where’s Zarya?”  
  
“Left her back with Hog. Figured she could beat him up again if he tried to get out. Clever, eh? Are you, uh, you feeling all right?” He took a quick puff of breath, tentatively reaching out towards her ice bag. “Lemme see it? Maybe I could help w-”  
  
She moved back from his grasp. “No. No, I’m not feeling all right. I’m still mad at you. And someone I thought was my friend tried to kill me.”  
  
“Could ya…not be mad at me? Actually, okay. You can be mad at me, but not at Roadie, that ain’t his fault!”  
  
“And someone else decided that he this was a situation where nobody needed to interfere, and he almost died too,” she said, staring him down.  
  
“I arready said I was sorry!”  
  
“No you did not, Jamison Fawkes! You never say you’re sorry. And I’ve gotten used to that. But even a sorry isn’t going to fix this. This…I can’t just ignore this.” Her voice went to a sudden high pitched almost-snarl, before quickly shushing herself and looking down the hall to make sure they weren’t overheard. She lifted a hand to her face wearily, looking torn. “I’m going to change into some fresh clothes, and then I’m going to see Dr. Ziegler. She’ll know what to do.”  
  
Junkrat’s eyes widened. He reached out again, and again she pulled away. “Ya can’t! Ya can’t do this to us, darl. This was all…This was all just an accident. Bad things happened to Hog. I dunno what, but they were bad and sometimes they get to him and for a while he ain’t himself. But that ain’t his fault. It ain’t never his fault. I don’t get mad at him for it, just like I don’t get mad at you for what happened to you. Just because Hog gets mad and punches at things, and you stare off into the nothing and cry, that ain’t your faults. I’ll help you both!”  
  
She looked a little more pained, but he couldn’t tell if it was the head wound or frustration of their little spat. “Jamison, this isn’t helping. I know you think you’re helping, but you can’t do this. Mr. Roadhog doesn’t need to be chained and locked up, he needs help. Dr. Ziegler can-”  
  
“Doc Angelface don’t understand. She’s not a junker. But Hog’s my best mate. The only one I got. And I’m not gonna let this place reprogram my only best mate’s brainmeats. Or mine. I know you don’t think much of that, but s’truth. Yeah, see, I know that little side-eye you give me sometimes. You think I don’t know the radiation’s cooked my nut, and my nuts?” He tapped the side of his scraggly head, then made a lewd gesture downward. “I know ya think we’re crazy! Fockin’ ‘ell, I know we _are_ crazy!”  
  
Mei was quiet for a long minute, gaze slipping down to the floor and the little smears of blood puddled beneath them. “I’ve…I’ve never said that…”  
  
“But we ain’t something to be fixed. You can’t _fix_ everything, love. I know you try, but you can’t.”  
  
Anger and frustrating was starting to win out again, and he could see tears gathering in the corner of her eyes, even as they narrowed at him and her voice quavered. “I’m not saying you’re just some crazy person to be fixed. And neither is Mr. Roadhog. I don’t want you to think that that’s how I see you. Please, I just…I don’t want this to be happening. We can tell the doctor. It’s not reprogramming or fixing, and it might save both your lives, and maybe my life, and your teammates’ lives. It’s just helping! We just want to help you!”  
  
He was about to snap back some retort when she pulled the ice pack away from her head. Blood matted her hair, and he could see the deep bruises and gashes in her head where Hog’s spiked and armored fist had thrown her across the room like she was nothing. His reply died away and he reached out to her again, this time to touch his fingertips to the wound. She grimaced at even the lightest pressure, quickly replacing the numbing ice.  
  
“We both need to see the doctor anyway,” she said softly. “I’m fairly sure I have a concussion and you…Jamison, look at yourself in the mirror. You’re hurt. You’re really hurt and he almost killed you in front of me. And I couldn’t stop him. Neither of us could stop him. If Zarya hadn’t arrived when she did, who knows what he was capable of? He could have woken up after accidentally killing us both.”  
  
“Nah, wouldn’t have let him hurt ya! I mean, this time…he…” He glanced to the bloody ice bag, trailing off before trying again. “Hey, we both been through worse, yeah? And you. Maybe you can help me. And I guess that purple-haired bint since she knows too. She can be our muscle, fightin’ the other muscle. We had a little accident here, but-”  
  
“Jamison, your face is broken in several places and you’re missing at least one tooth!”  
  
He waved both arms in the air. “-An accident here or there! But what’s a tooth or two between mates? We can prepare better next time. More chains, more traps, mebbe pilfer some more of Ana’s darts…That’s a good idea, ain’t it Mei? Me and you, we’re helping him together. That way I don’t have to do anything ridiculous, like choose between ya!”  
  
Her brows furrowed. “W-we can’t do that, Jamie. I’m trying to tell you, we can’t do that. I know what you’re trying to say, but we have to do the right thing and get help. And why would…” She seemed a little choked up suddenly, but Junkrat attributed it to her head wound. Head wounds were strange, maybe it was giving her a snotty nose. “Why would you think I’m asking you to choose between us? Are you…already choosing between us?”  
  
Alarms were starting to go off between his ears, and he thought back to Zarya’s words. Grovel like a good person. Maybe groveling would work. So he dropped down to one knee as gallantly as possibly, though he wobbled slightly on the squeaky-jointed upright peg and held one arm aloft to her, babbling aloud, “No! No, see, I don’t wanna have to choose between my best girl and my best mate! That’s a hell of a place to be, isn’t it? So we’re not gonna do that, are we? Did I say I’m sorry yet? You said I never say I’m sorry? I’m sorry, Mei. I’m real sorry about what happened, and I won’t let it happen again. He don’t mean it. I’ll take the blame. That’s good, right? Come on, darl, I’m sorrying my arse off here, what can I do to make it better?”  
  
His attempts at an apology seemed to be having the opposite effect. She lifted her other hand to her head almost to clutch it in seeming chagrin as she looked down at him. “ _Wǒ bùnéng zhèyàng zuò_ … I can’t…I have to do this. I have to do things the right way, even if Mr. Roadhog hates me for it, even if you….”  
  
“No…Darl, no, it’s gonna be okay. You said you wanted to help? You can still help!” He pressed his metallic hand to his chest, still wobbling a bit on his bent peg. “I’m sorry and that’s good, right? You and me, we can figure out anything. We’ll think of something together, yeah?”  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m trying to make you understand and…I can’t…”  
  
“No! No, you can! We can!” He was staring to sound a little more desperate than he would have liked. This was not working as well as he’d hoped. Maybe he wasn’t groveling in the right way. Maybe he needed to get on both knees, and beg her like he’d begged for his life so many times before. “Roadie’s gonna be back to his old self by the time we get back. I’ll make some tea, we can talk it over like real civilized legit folks do, yeah? We don’t need to bring the damn monkey or his bureaucrats into things. Look, I know your head hurts real bad right now but it’ll all look brighter in the morning. I’ll take care of you. Swear it, I’ll do anything for you.”  
  
She wouldn’t look at him. Why wouldn’t she look at him? And why did that hurt even more than his bruised jaw and broken ribs? She kept staring at the floor, at that one little puddle of brownish-red. “Jamie, please…”  
  
“I was just talking. Earlier, when I said that rot about choosing between you and Hog. It was nothing! You know me, I just say things, I got a gob on me a mile wide. Verbal diarrhea! Sorry, sorry, I know you don’t like the word diarrhea. I’ll be more careful with things, love, promise you. No. No, please don’t cry. Is it your head hurtin’? I got painkillers and Roadie’s hogdrogen huffers back at the garage. No? You worried about Russki? She’s fine. Hell, I’m more worried about Hog in that case. Er. Is it because I’m all beaten about? It don’t hurt much, I’ll be healthy as a brumby in no time at all.” He scratched at his tufted hair, mind racing. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. Between you and me, we always figure it out. We go together, you and me…b-because we…”  
  
She meant too much to him. He was certain it must have been love, or at least what he could understand of it from the songs on the radio and how reverently it was spoken of in the theater. It was something that didn’t exist back in the wasteland he’d clawed his way out of, but he knew that if it was what he thought it was, it would be her. Everything about her made his heart scream at the thought of losing her. He needed to tell her that this couldn’t end things between them, what he would do to keep her. How badly he wanted and needed her by his side for whatever time they both had left, how much he loved her smile and her little laughs and even her angry pouty faces, all the times he’d spent going over every moment of them getting to know one another, trying not to forget a single thing, how he could lay in bed next to her and revel in the soft touches of her body until he died. How he couldn’t even envision life never being able to make love to her again, or go back to a life without her.  
  
The words he wanted to say turned backwards and ran into one another and jumbled up on his tongue, bubbling and spewing out of his mouth like crude oil out of a broken pipeline before he could do anything to stop them. “B-because I can’t imagine not being able to fuck you!”  
  
Time seemed to screech to an abrupt halt. Mei’s jaw dropped open as she finally looked at him. She seemed stunned, expression blanking as the two of them stared at one another. In his head, Junkrat could hear the pieces dropping all around him, little metallic noises as everything fell apart. It all broke at once, pieces of words and feelings laying shattered all around him, rolling about his feet and falling into the holes in his brain. He stared back at her, his eyes drifting apart slightly, before he could rally enough to try and make sense of the hopeless mess inside his head. “Wait! That’s not what I m-”  
  
With shock still written all over her features, she slammed the door in his face.


	4. 4

_“Mako, take care of yourself out there.”_  
  
_Those has been her exact words. She stood in the doorway, rocking the still-fussing bundle in one arm as the other reached up to loosely embrace him._  
  
_He had assured her that he would, but could understand her worry. Tonight was the big night, after all. They had been losing ground steadily, but this night was going to change things. After months of planning, gathering supplies, avoiding detection, and calling in every favor from every corner of the Outback, they would finally strike back. They were going to reclaim their home._  
  
_He had slipped on his pig mask once more. They wore the likenesses of animals; a combination of disguise, gasmask necessity, and (at least for him) a certain amount of suspicion that those animals might bring them luck. His fondness for pigs made that decision easy, although it had opened up an easy joke about his weight from the man who wore the dingo mask. A few gruff words and one blow of his massive fist had seen that nobody made that joke again. They called him Roadhog, or nothing at all._  
  
_He should have kissed her before he left. Kissed them both. But he had had a lot on his mind. Instead he chose to focus, as he drove his chopper in the makeshift battle convoy they had put together so hastily. The electrical pulses from the fence had been easily disabled, the bolt cutters tore a path through the barbed wire, and when they were inside, Mako and the other enforcers of their band had made short work of the guard bots before they knew what hit them. He remembered thinking it was all going so well. They fanned out, just as planned, and the other group made their way deeper into the facility while they stayed to fight and block the way. Dingo had died in the first wave, but that had been expected. He had always been a bit of a fucker. But then Crocodile, Tas Devil, Lizard, Shark, Hawk, and others, he saw each of them fall one by one. He was going to radio it in, call for the retreat and regroup, but then…_  
  
_He remembered hearing a noise coming towards them. He had thought for one blissful, hopeful half-second, that the plan had worked. That despite everything they had sacrificed, the plan had worked and they had regained their homeland. That they had finally won._  
  
_Then everything had turned white._  
  
_After that, all he could think of was that he should have kissed her. He’d left the others behind, no matter how they screamed for him to help them. Everything around and in him was burning, and he had to get back, had to make sure he could still kiss her, because he hadn’t had time before. The chopper beneath him was red-hot and painful to hold onto, but it had always gotten him where he needed to go, and this was no different. It bore him all the way home, all the way back to where the house was mostly collapsed and still smoldering on one side. His first instinct was to check the shelter below, throw open the doors and find them both there, afraid but happy to see him. But the chains on the cellar doors were still tied in place and had not been disturbed since when he’d left. So he made his way to the broken doorframe and pushed, heaved, and shattered until he was inside._  
  
_Eventually he found them._  
  
_The ceiling of the bedroom had collapsed, but had been propped up by the frame of the closet, leaving a little space between it and the mattress. She had always been quick and clever, and had tried to take shelter there, right by the overturned crib he’d built all those months ago. That was where he found what was left of her, recognizing the pattern from a tattered strip of her charred nightgown, wrapped around a body that was shrunken and red and black. She’d tried to turn her back on the white light, hunched protectively over the bundle in her arms. When he’d touched her, she had broken, and the inside of her sparkled with orange embers against gray. And when he tried to move the blanket-wrapped mass in her arms, ashes poured from the bottom, staining his hands._  
  
_For days he simply sat there next to them, his head down, staring at his hands and nothing else. He couldn’t bear to look at their faces. Couldn’t see if they still had their faces._  
  
_But as more of Mako rotted away, Roadhog remained, for lack of anything better to do with himself. The pig mask served its purpose, at least- it kept him alive and it covered his face. The pig face was all that mattered, anymore. He wore it always, aimlessly roaming the ruins of the tiny homestead, surviving off the food and water in the cellar. There had been more than enough for one person, after all. After the fires had stopped, the scavengers came. They came to desecrate his home and his territory, steal what was rightfully his. And sometimes at night, in the decrepit shelter beneath the house, he would wake up and hear them coming. He’d wake up, and things were dark and unfamiliar, but he could hear them, scrabbling and scraping like vermin, little unwary footsteps in the shadows, whispering between them._  
  
_And he would get up, and go to kill them like he had killed all the rest._  
  
_There had been two of them this time. A tall, lanky man missing some of his limbs (hardly unusual in the Outback), and the little squat woman that must have been his mate. The little fat one shrieked when he hurt her, in an amusing way that clearly affected the skinny man, and he thought that he should kill her in front of him. They had been clever, with traps and chains, but it had only slowed him down and delayed the inevitable. It was only when the other one had appeared…the woman with the pink hair, that he had been faced with an actual challenge. And Roadhog never backed down from a challenge…_  
  
_Not even when his head smashed into the concrete, and those strange thoughts had bubbled back up to the surface again._  
  
_“Mako, take care of yourself out there.”_

  
***

* * *

  
  
Roadhog awoke to the muffled sound of laughter…and this time, perhaps the only time he could remember in a long, long while, it wasn’t Junkrat’s laughter.  
  
“Hah! Haha! He fell down! Oooh!” It was a female voice, thickly accented, but it wasn’t Mei. He lifted his head, though it hurt to do so, and through the glass lenses of his mask, he could make out the blurry form sitting on his living room sofa. When he focused, the blurry form solidified into the pink-haired Russian woman. Why Zarya was sitting on his sofa, literally slapping her knee in laughter as the Japanese game show on the TV depicted two costumed men trying to race across an obstacle course covered in grease, he wasn’t at all sure.  
  
His head pounded, and he tried to move to cradle it. But he found his limbs unresponsive and unnaturally heavy, pinned to his sides due to the absolutely ridiculous amount of chains that draped over him, tying him to the column against his back. Struggling a bit against his bindings, he looked down and saw that both hands were thoroughly covered in blood and Junkrat’s missing golden tooth was laying on the floor a few feet away, glinting cheekily in the light in a shining puddle of red.  
  
_Ah…Damn._  
  
“You are awake again?” Zarya took notice of his movements, lifting the remote to pause the gameshow. Twisting on the sofa, she scooted to the edge and sat with an irritatingly casual air, back slumped forward and her hands resting between her knees, just staring at him in a way he didn’t like at all.  
  
He didn’t bother asking what had happened. He knew what had happened, and only one question mattered. “Hmm…Where are they?”  
  
The question did not seem to impress her. Her eyes half-lidded at him and her lip curled to one side. “Ah, actually awake this time. And as for the others…They are away. After what you did.” She waited, still sneering, for his reaction.  
  
For a very long time he was silent, then simply grunted a low, “Good.”  
  
Zarya’s eyes narrowed further, and the scar on her forehead shifted as her brows furrowed. “Good? That is all you have to say?”  
  
“Mm,” he said in the affirmative. Judging by her words and tone, angry but not angry enough, both Junkrat and Mei were still alive. He’d gone back to that place again, where everything was still burning and where faces didn’t matter. And this time, it had been without warning. Usually there were little things to tell him it was coming; bad dreams, a tendency for his mind to wander, or a shortened temper as he felt the edges of his thoughts fraying more and more. But there had been a few times like this one; where he had simply woken up and not known where or when was. And it had happened again.  
  
For a moment he had wondered if he had killed them both.  
  
She stood, only to lean down over him. Roadhog, unused to having to look up to anyone, lifted his chin slowly and looked back. He had never paid the Russian much mind, just as he didn’t pay most people much mind. He knew that Junkrat hated her, that Mei liked her, that Zarya returned those feelings in kind, and that she was strong. He would never have guessed that she was strong enough to possibly beat him, but she was strong. He had always liked the brightness of her dyed hair and had once seen that she had a rare Pachimari keychain that he had considered stealing from her, for his collection. But with her looming over him, he began noticing other things about her; the scar across her forehead that must have nearly killed her, the bold stance with which she faced him as few could, and the incredible loathing in her gaze.  
  
Mostly he noticed that her eyes were green.  
  
_Just like hers had been…_  
  
“Give me a reason I should not hurt you like you hurt my friend, pig,” she said, voice low and almost gentle. Roadhog tensed slightly. He knew that kind of tone was always the most dangerous, and didn’t move as the woman curled her charmingly pink-nailed fingers slowly, into a fist. The outline of every knuckle could be felt as she brought it to rest lightly against his temple, the outline of her bones felt as sharply as the spiked metal he wore on his own knuckles. “Tell me why I should not hurt you. I know you can speak. Look at me and tell me.”  
  
The bound man said nothing, save for the low rattle of the air filters of his mask. His silence only seemed to frustrate the woman further, and he could feel the tremors of her knuckles as if they ached to rear back and strike, like the tension of a coiled serpent. But when she drew back, she did not punch him as expected, but went to grasp the edges of his mask and pull. Roadhog could feel the leather straps and buckles straining, threatening to give way as she snarled, “Look and tell me wh-”  
  
His vision blacked out again as he felt the mask slipping, reflexes firing as he reared back in what precious little space he had in his bound position, and then brought his head slamming forward. The swine’s forehead collided solidly with hers, their skulls both making a dully satisfying cracking noise as her legs went out from under her in her squatting position, falling hard onto her rear. She started to straighten, sitting in front of him as they faced off yet again, bringing her palm to her forehead and her green eyes alight with anger, but there was a low rumbling as he interrupted before she could say anything.  
  
“…Don’t.” He turned his face to the side as if trying not to look at her.  
  
The movement seemed to strike her as odd, and she hesitated briefly before her sneer returned. Her hands lifted as if she was going to make another go for his mask, concussions be damned. “You think I am afraid to look at the face of a murderer?”  
  
“No,” he grunted, and kept his masked visage down. “Don’t.”  
  
“Then…you are the one afraid. To show your face.”  
  
He did not answer.  
  
The way she was looking at him was still far from kind, wary and calculating, voice still low. “I do not know your face…but I already know who you are, Mako Rutledge. Mako Rutledge, the Roadhog. Jamison Fawkes, the Junkrat. We know you cause trouble for the police in Britain, Oasis, Numbani, Egypt, many more…And we were ready for you to try for the jewels in Moscow, we know when you were going t-”  
  
“No.”  
  
She looked at him. “What? Do not lie to me, pig. We know of the documents showing you were en route to Moscow. The historical czar jewelry collection is famed all over the world! We know you were both-”  
  
“Never was headed for Russia. He doesn’t like the cold. Hm. Russians has always been paranoid.” Roadhog shrugged before his head tilted up slowly, his mask a bit lopsided and only able to see from one lens. The woman tried to hide it, but he saw the way her lips thinned, clearly displeased at his answer. Not only the accusation of national paranoia, but the suggestion that the junkers hadn’t even bothered with Russia on their worldwide crime spree had perhaps stung her a bit. She lifted her chin, no doubt about to accost him further or proclaim that she didn’t believe it, but he interrupted her. “Where are they.”  
  
She folded her arms, but finally answered him truthfully. “Your junkman chased after Mei to the barracks. No doubt she’ll report it to someone there. Hopefully they get medical treatment too. You hurt them both, pig.”  
  
“…Bad?”  
  
“Bad.”  
  
“Hm,” he grunted, and rested back against the pillar once more.  
  
Zarya waited, then scowled when he once again showed no sign of response. Not an ounce of remorse or concern for his so-called friends, it seemed, not even after being told that he had hurt them both. Snorting derisively through both nostrils, she rested her hands on both knees before lifting upright, moving back to her spot on the couch. “They’ll be here soon to kick you out. And punish me.”  
  
“Why.”  
  
She paused with the remote half-lifted. “Why?! After what you have done to Mei! Your Rat Man, well, that is nothing new. But even then, you are a liability to the team, hurting them when you should h-”  
  
“Why would you be punished.”  
  
She paused a little at that before frowning and turning back to the television, clicking it on. The gameshow contestants began their newest jaunt across the grease-covered course and she tried to ignore the beastly man that was still staring at her. He was so tall that even sitting on the ground, he was almost as tall as she was, sitting on the couch. And he was just there, looming as ever, silent, and watching her, and waiting on her answer, with those irritating filters grinding away…breathing in, breathing out, breathing in…  
  
One of the women on TV, dressed in a yellow ducky tutu, fell off the greased pole and into the mud below. Zarya tried to focus her attention on that, even as her mouth moved. “Reprimanded. For knowing about what you have been beating and hurting the Rat Man for months when you are out of control. And…” Mei’s bloody, angry face flashed through her mind, along with a wave of guilt. “…I knew, and did nothing.”  
  
The grind of the air filters continued, and she hated it. Roadhog merely nodded slowly, and uttered another low, “Mm…”  
  
For a while they sat there, tension palpable from her end, while Roadhog remained inscrutable as ever. The gameshow continued to play, though she only half watched it with a far-away look in her green eyes. She barely noticed when the enormous junker began shifting slightly. But she certainly took notice a few moments later, when there was a creaking noise, a few metallic clinks, and then the lengths of chain that had been draped all around him began to drop away, snaking down his bulging arms and belly as they all shuffled towards the ground. Before she could even react, starting to rise off the couch, Roadhog was already painstakingly hefting himself to stand, shedding more and more chains into a pile looped around his spiked boots.  
  
“А, подожди-ка!” Zarya was on her feet within moments, both fists raised and aggression sharpening her every feature as she took up her stance to face him. “How did you get loose!”  
  
But Roadhog merely tilted his masked head, then leaned down to reach into the red puddle a few feet away, delicately pinching two fingers together to pick up Junkrat’s missing gold tooth. Holding it up to one of his lenses for inspection, he carefully wiped it on the side of his dirty pants, before tucking it into his pocket. “…Rat always ties them in the same spot. Keep telling him not to. But he doesn’t remember.” He stepped over the discarded mounds of chain, watching impassively as the Russian took a careful step back.  
  
Zarya did not relax for a moment, not even when he moved to the other side of the couch from her and sat down again. The poor furniture creaked under his weight, and she thought she saw her once-seat start to lift into the air as its opposite end sank into the ground.  
  
“…It’s a good show,” Roadhog said. He sat with his arms between his spread knees, posture slumped and far from aggressive.  
  
The man seemed docile enough and was back in his usual state of mind (mysterious as that was to begin with), though Zarya shot him another warning look before sitting back down as well. She weighed nowhere near as much as the massive junker, but more than both Junkrat and Mei combined, almost all of which was solid muscle. The couch positively groaned at the strain as it tried to support them both, sitting at opposite ends and giving each other wary glances. Another episode of the gameshow started up and Zarya barely noticed, occasionally looking at the time on the bottom of the screen. Mei should have roused the whole base against them by now, or Junkrat had distracted her in some way. Why had the inevitable not come crashing down upon her yet?  
  
Apparently Hog wondered the same thing, lifting his chin towards the door and grumbling a low, “Mmm?”  
  
Zarya shrugged. “I do not know. The Rat Man went after Mei and did not come back. Either he is saying sorry, or he is trying to kidnap her and I will have to break his face even more.”  
  
Roadhog glanced down to where he felt the jagged protrusion through the cloth of his pocket. Junkrat’s missing tooth seemed to be trying to bite him for his folly, even if it wasn’t attached to its owner. Once more he looked at the drying puddles of blood staining the cement floor nearby. With a baritone sigh, he pressed his masked face into his palm.  
  
“Not actually break his face…It was joke,” Zarya offered, perhaps with a bit of guilt in her tone. “But he better not be kidnapping her.”  
  
“She’s tough,” the junker said. “Little, but tough. Bosses Rat around a lot. S’funny.”  
  
Zarya wrinkled her nose with a snort. “Still. I do not know what she sees in the Rat Man. Loud, deranged, evil, dishonest…very scrawny too!”  
  
“…Tell me how you really feel,” Hog replied dryly.  
  
“That may be fine where junkers are from. Where you are from. But Mei is not like that. She is a good woman, and deserves a good person. The Rat Man, too touched in the head. Brain is bad, misfires, ptchwww!” She made a little exploding gesture near her ears, pursing her lips. “Mad man. No good.”  
  
“Is that why you’d let me kill him.”  
  
Zarya froze. The gameshow continued playing and Hog’s filters kept grinding, but she was silent for a very long while, her gaze slanting dangerously to meet his blank lenses, and staying there. “…What.”  
  
“If Mei wasn’t there,” Roadhog said, his eyes hidden somewhere under the glass of his mask, staring at how green hers were. “You’d let me kill him.”  
  
Zarya’s jaw tensed and her brows furrowed, and Hog watched the way the flesh around her scars moved with it. She thought about her answer before saying anything- a rather refreshing change after so much time around Junkrat- and gnawed on her bottom lip for a moment before finally saying, “…Da. I would have. Maybe that is wrong, now. But at the time, I would have. I did the same before, when I heard you hurting him. I did not care.”  
  
She clearly expected a response, but lifted a brow when all she received was a very subtle shrug and a low, “Hmm,” before he turned his masked face back to the television show.  
  
“…Why do you try to hurt them, pig? The Rat man, yes, I understand, but Mei? You are angry at her, maybe?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“She was just in the way? You are angry at the Rat?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Is it just because you are a bad man, Mako Rutledge?”  
  
Roadhog’s filters ground a few painful-sounding breaths for several moments before answering “…Maybe.”  
  
Zarya frowned.


	5. 5

Why did he have to be so darn persistent?  
  
Junkrat had been pounding on her door for at least ten minutes, and she could sometimes make out his muffled begging or platitudes as he called her name from the other side of the thick metal. At one point she heard another voice down the hall- she couldn’t tell who- hiss at him to take his noise elsewhere, which had resulted in a storm of cursing and threats from the junker, right before he’d continued trying to beat her door down once more.  
  
Several times, she had started up her tablet and pulled up Dr. Ziegler’s contact information. Her portrait flickered in the air as it was projected upward, half-smiling in that kind but tired way that the doctor wore most of the time. Below were several sets of numbers, including ‘Emergency Contact’. Mei stared at the picture blankly as she slowly lifted up a blood-stained finger…and then just as slowly brought it down again without pressing the button. Again. Just like she’d done several times already.  
  
Snowball sat in its charging station, idle but awake as the soft blue glow of its screen watched her curiously. After a bit, it beeped a questioning chime, animated eyes blinking as a set of question marks scrolled across it.  
  
Mei gave it a little half-hearted smile. “It’s fine, Snowball. I just need another minute,” she said, which was the exact same thing she’d said many minutes ago.  
  
She looked up as the sound of Junkrat’s metal hand continued rapping, followed by the muffled cry of “ _Mei! Mei, please!_ ” from the door.  
  
There wasn’t much debate to this whole thing. She needed to press the button and summon Mercy. That was really all there was to it. Angela had dealt with Overwatch’s myriad of medical troubles for years, and there was no doubt that she could handle the two junkers. She probably would need her Valkyrie armor to do it, but there was no doubt she could handle them. Roadhog would be taken into custody where he couldn’t hurt anyone, Zarya would be led off for a formal reprimand or a court-martial, and Junkrat would be given medical treatment against his will, dragged kicking and screaming away from her door- probably yelling that he was an idiot for ever being stupid enough to trust her. And it would hurt to do that to all three of them. But after all that had happened… That was what needed to be done.  
  
And that’s precisely what she would do! She just…needed another minute, that was all.  
  
“Not being able to fuck me…” she echoed a little bitterly, wincing as she pressed the ice pack to her head. That’s what he’d said. The nerve! And what bad timing! Even though, deep down, she knew that wasn’t what he’d meant to say. The look of sheer panic after he’d blurted it out…It was clearly just him talking without getting his thoughts in the right order. He did that a lot, and she’d become adept at deciphering what he was trying to actually say, and would often help steer his madcap train of thought in the right direction. Usually it would result in him leaning down to give her a quick kiss on the cheek or the top of her head, followed by praise or thanks before he’d go rambling on whatever he’d be rambling about.  
  
But tonight she just couldn’t help him. Or, well, she could help him, but in a manner that would utterly betray him, in a way that might not ever allow him to forgive her.  
  
But why should she worry about betraying them? None of them had been worried about betraying her, after all. All three of them had known about Roadhog’s dangerous condition, and none of them had cared to do a darn thing about it! Even Zarya had decided that her silly crusade to get the junkers ‘recognized’ as dangerous was worth more than her own wellbeing. Roadhog apparently thought that silence and secrecy were the best ways to handle his own violent blackouts…and ultimately, Junkrat had chosen his friend over her. He’d chosen to ignore her safety in favor of keeping his partner’s secret, and had continued to invite her there night after night, all the while knowing the danger lurking beneath the pig mask slumbering just one room away. They had nearly died because of it.  
  
And still, there he was, pounding on her door like he hadn’t nearly killed her.  
  
She wondered how long he’d been doing all this. How long ago had he first woken up with his bodyguard’s hands around his throat and his cries going unrecognized? With all the years he said they had traveled together, how had he managed? He couldn’t fight him, that much was obvious. Maybe he tried hiding. She could see him, huddled in a dirty ravine in the Outback, with his hand over his mouth to muffle his breathing as the heavy footfalls of his enraged friend patrolled nearby. Maybe he curled up under his bed or in one of his hidey-holes back in their garage, watching and waiting until Hog became himself again and the danger passed. But maybe even that didn’t always work. And after that…did he just try to run and stay out of reach? She could remember him appearing with bruises and bandages, making excuses about one or both of them being too sick to attend meetings or training. And she’d never questioned it because (Just like Zarya had said) the two were strange and dangerous men from a strange and dangerous land. For goodness’ sake, Junkrat was almost constantly on fire and carried around a collection of live explosive devices. She’d never thought anything of him having a few more bruises than usual…  
  
How could she not have noticed? Was she truly just as blind and naive as they apparently thought her?…Were they right?  
  
**BANG BANG BANG** “ _Mei! C’mon, don’t do this_!”  
  
She winced a little. The pounding was doing nothing for her headache. Pulling the icepack away, she gingerly let her fingertips roam over the jagged gashes in the side of her head where Hog’s fist had made impact. She’d seen him pummel their enemies before; a nigh unstoppable force, sending bodies flying left and right. She never imagined that hers would be among them. He’d barely gotten her with a glancing blow, but those sharp metal spikes on his knuckles had done their job well. She was lucky they hadn’t broken open her skull.  
  
What would they do with Roadhog once they found out? They’d be furious, all of them. Half the base didn’t even want the junkers there, much like Zarya. They’d be proven right. He’d be a liability and would be kicked out, wouldn’t he? And if he was forced to return to Australia, no doubt that Junkrat would go back with him. He’d made his choice already, no matter how he’d denied it. He’d leave her, even though he’d promised not to.  
  
**BANG BANG BANG** “ _Mei! Open up, darl, please_!”  
  
“Go away, Jamison!” she replied loudly, knowing he couldn’t really hear her.  
  
Snowball hesitantly flicked open its sidefins and hovered up out of its charger, slowly making its way over and uttering low, sympathetic bwooping noises. Positioning itself over the icepack laying on her knee, it opened its endothermic compartment and gave a little blast of cold air, chilling the pack and the leg of her pajamas as well. She shivered, goosebumps rising all over her. “Eeee! Snowball! I’m fine, really. Don’t worry.”  
  
It beeped at her again and nudged the icepack forward. Sighing, she dutifully lifted it back towards the side of her head. “It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? I mean, maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. Head wounds always bleed a lot, so…maybe it’s not as bad as we think?”  
  
It whined and shook its screen back and forth.  
  
“Maybe it’s exactly as bad as we think? I know, I know. I promise I’ll have it looked at soon.” She opened one arm as the little drone snuggled up against her side, hugging it to her. “I’ll give Dr. Ziegler a call and that should get everything started…Even if they don’t want me too, even if they hate me. I can do this. I can still fix this...”  
  
“ _You can’t fix everything, love. I know you try, but you can’t._ ”  
  
Junkrat’s words from earlier echoed through her head, so strongly that she looked up to make sure he hadn’t somehow gotten inside. He’d stopped knocking, but she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just waiting for her outside the door. He was always a persistent one. Maybe she should open up the door and check on him, though? Maybe she should take him up on his offer, go back to where he and Roadhog and Zarya were waiting for her. Maybe they could talk things out? She’d need to head back to them, either way. Either as a friend making a huge mistake, or as a foe who was doing the right thing… _fixing everything_ …  
  
She opened up her tablet and Angela’s portrait flickered back to life, as well as the emergency number beneath it.  
  
“I just need another minute…”  
  
  
***

* * *

  
  
  
Junkrat sat slumped outside, leaning against the door with his legs sprawled out flat along the floor and his head hanging limply down against his bony chest. He’d tried begging, he’d tried whining, he’d even tried apologizing, and nothing had worked. Damn woman wouldn’t even open the door. His first inclination was to simply blow it open. He had enough charges to blast down several doors, one after the other, if she kept trying to hide from him. If he could just get her cornered in one spot, she’d have to listen to him. He could throw himself on her mercy and keep apologizing or ask whatever it was she’d demand of him, and he’d do it. Wasn’t that what decent blokes did? Isn’t that what she wanted him to be?  
  
But now that the adrenaline had all worn off, he had to admit that maybe he wasn’t in the best of conditions to go physically chasing her anyway. His ribs ached fiercely, his head and jaw hurt, and one side of his face around his eye was so swollen and blackened that he couldn’t see proper. He kept running his tongue into the place where his tooth used to be, prodding repeatedly at the gap. Usually he was better at keeping ahead of Hog when he got like this. Hog was strong, but Junkrat was downright slippery when he needed to be. And he’d always needed to be, living life on the outskirts and squirming his way out of one deadly situation after another. Roadhog going berserk was just another thing he needed to deal with sometimes, but he’d always managed. If there was enough warning, he could avoid it altogether. Tonight had just been a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, with Mei being there included. Even then, he’d tried to defend his lady with life and limb and had taken the worst of it.  
  
And now she hated him.  
  
He’d tried to explain everything to her, but she’d locked him out. Kicked him right out into the bloody proverbial cold. There was an ice joke in there somewhere, he was sure of it, but his head hurt too much when he thought about it, and she probably wouldn’t be able to hear him. Maybe if he shouted the joke under the door? Of course, that might wake up the base and render this whole operation moot. And he couldn’t linger for too long, not when he’d left that shitheaded Russian alone with Hog in that state.  
  
He staggered upright, leaning heavily on the wall for support. Staring at the cold and unfeeling metal, he brought his fist down onto it. It wasn’t really a knock, just more one last, heavy motion of anger and frustration. It boomed on her door, but at this point he didn’t expect an answer. “Mei!”  
  
There was no response from within.  
  
“…Fine. Fine, I see how it is. Giving a bloke no chance at all. Can’t trust junkers, is that it? Yeah, yeah maybe you was right! ‘Cause you gotta be right all the time, don’t ya!” He snarled, rubbing his arm and finally turning away, muttering darkly. “Never woulda locked you out…Never ever…Fine howdoyado and all, after everything y-”  
  
“Trouble in paradise, Fawkes?”  
  
He nearly jumped out of his skin, leaping dramatically into the air and coming down in a very intimidating karate-chop pose. “The fuck’s that! Who’zere?! …Oh, Nan, s’just you.”  
  
Ana stood at the bend in the hall, a steaming china teacup in one hand. She was wrapped in fluffy robes and was missing her eyepatch, and Junkrat could see the gruesome scar pattern leading towards where her eye used to be. He barely paid it any mind. He’d seen plenty of maimed folks back home, although none of them carried it with the old woman’s confident poise. In the dimmed light, she tilted her head in a little greeting before motioning to the door. “Everything all right?”  
  
Remembering his bloody and battered appearance, he quickly turned back to the door and away from her so she couldn’t see his face, laughing nervously. “Uh, yeah! Yeah, s’fine. Ya know, just…a disagreement. It’s nothing, just a lil’ baby of a disagreement, that’s all. Ladies, eh! Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em!” He nodded sagely, having picked that up from a trucking hat he’d seen one time at a rest stop. “Yeah, just…ladies! Uh, what are you doing up?”  
  
“I thought I heard a bit of a commotion. Then I heard the commotion was you, and came to see if you’re all right, habibi…So, are you all right?” She sipped her tea gingerly, lips barely touching the still-hot liquid.  
  
“Aw, Nan, everything’s apples here. Everyone has a little tiff now and again, that’s all.” He turned towards the window at the end of the hall when the old woman took another step forward, trying to keep her from looking at him. “Shame, too, really nice night out there, isn’t it? Yeah, really clear, lots of stars n’ shit! Was just gonna have a discussion about some things but it’s all a bit of a quarrel. Didn’t mean to wake you up, though, real inconsiderate of me and all. Sorry. Sorry, I’m sorry. Fuck, I‘m sorry.”  
  
Ana paused, cup halfway to her lips, staring him down as the junker apologized to her. For a moment she eyed him very carefully, though her voice was still even. “That’s quite all right, Jamison. Do mind the cursing though, remember what we’ve talked about, using our words? But it’s so late, I suppose we should both head back to our beds?”  
  
He rubbed at his hair, still facing the window. “Yeah! Heheh! Yeah, guess we should. Everything’s all the brighter and earlier in the morning, that’s what they say. I’ll just…uh, y’know.” He turned to flee, sidling away from her and pretending to cough loudly so he could turn his head. Shooting past her quickly, he limped his way back off towards the garage once more. “Uh…yeh, see ya round, Nan.”  
  
“Good night, Jamison.” Ana placed her teacup back onto its saucer, watching him go as the lanky junker turned the corner and the clacking of his peg leg got further and further away.  
  
Her single eye glanced down to the floor, where she had followed the telltale droplets of dried brownish-red that had led her all the way here, and the larger smears of blood around the entry to Mei’s dorm. The edges of her lips thinned and pulled down into a frown before she spoke up once more. “Athena, send a cleaning unit down to my location. Quickly, if you please.”  
  
A soft voice chimed from somewhere above her. “Right away, Miss Amari. Do you require any more assistance?”  
  
“…Not yet.”


	6. 6

Zarya looked to the door for what must have been the hundredth time in just the past few minutes. She was still sitting as far away from Roadhog as possible, leaning on the arm of the sofa and only half-watching the goofy game show. Roadhog sat placidly with his arms folded over his immense gut, mask filters still grinding away and acting as though he’d forgotten her presence altogether. With the blank gleam of the lenses, she couldn’t even tell where he was looking, if he was even watching the show, or had fallen asleep again.  
  
“Too long. It has been too long. He has done something to her, I know it,” She grumbled to herself, glancing once more to the entryway. “They should have been here by now if she had time to report us.”  
  
“He didn’t do anything to her,” Hog rumbled, apparently not asleep. The mask turned very slightly as if to look at her. “He wouldn’t.”  
  
“He said he would kidnap her if he had to!”  
  
“Rat says a lot of things.”  
  
“Well, the rat man is also a liar. We should go check on her, I am worried. Come, stand up, we are going.” She started to heft herself upright.  
  
“No.” Hog said.  
  
Zarya turned to him and her gaze narrowed back into a glare.  
  
“No,” he said again. “Didn’t feel it coming on this time. Not going into the thick of it like that. Not yet. Can’t risk it.”  
  
“Risk it?” She pursed her lips. “It is not so far. What? You cannot control your temper?”  
  
Hog didn’t reply, glancing down a bit at Junkrat’s tooth still in his hand, and Zarya squinted at him rather suddenly. She seemed to be thinking something over.  
  
 “Or is it…No, not your temper.” Her frown deepened as she tapped the side of her head. “It is bothering you. What you said before, you said you normally feel it coming. This has happened to you many times before? You are seeing and feeling things that are not there, sometimes? Something that happened to you before, da? It is the…How do you say?… _Post-Travmaticheskoe Stressoe_?”  
  
It was probably some form of it, he knew. Maybe a small part of him had wondered about it, sometimes after looking down at hands covered in blood and bits, and not truly remembering where it had all come from. But as with so many other things; in the end, did it truly matter? He had stopped caring for such things a long time ago.  
  
He didn’t answer, so she kept talking. “I had a friend, from outside Krasnoyark, in the army with me. Afraid of clocks, strangest thing. Another soldier was wearing a watch, very old-fashioned, but he heard the ticking and went mad, started shrieking and clawing, trying to pull it off the girl’s arm. Found out during the crisis, he had been separated from group, pinned down in a foxhole with a dying omnic. Was malfunctioning, trying to repair itself but could not, making little sounds inside, tck tck tck tck tck. He could not get out but could not alert them to his presence, so for days he was just lying motionless in a hole, listening to tck tck tck tck. I still remember the look on his face when he heard that watch…”  
  
Hog said nothing for a long moment before grunting and pointing with one thick finger towards her forehead. “Got that in the army?”  
  
She lifted a hand to run her fingertips along the divot of the scar by her brow. “Ha! A glancing blow, only. I could only see out of one eye, so much blood, but the damned omnics were going to overtake our position. We were surrounded, anti-robotics tank was down, pulse guns out of ammo. So I turned and I ripped the particle cannon off the tank, and I scrapped them before they could scrap us. Tchuh!“  
  
“Mm. Takes a strong person to rip apart a tank.”  
  
“That is because I am the strongest, Mako Rutledge,” she smirked a bit, unable to help herself. “As I have shown you.”  
  
“You like arm wrestling. Rematch. When I’m more myself.”  
  
“Oh-ho! This will be good, I have not had any real challengers since the old man. Ah, I let him win once since it was his birthday, I have not heard the end of it since. It will be good to have a new opponent. I have tried to challenge you before, but you did not rise to the occasion. Do not think I will go easy on you, junker.”  
  
“Heh…I’ll rise to the occasion. Wouldn’t want you to go easy on me.”  
  
She paused and eyed him, then laughed with a little cough. “Yes! Well, good. Like I said, I have not had anyone step up to challenge me, except Reinhardt. Well, him and the little half-machine man who studies with the omnics. I told him no. It is lucky for him…I probably would have ripped off his little cyborg arm like I ripped the gun off that tank. Tch.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“Damned omnics…” she snorted, leaning back into the sofa. “It is still a travesty to let bots into Overwatch. I wish they would see that.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“Mei and the others do not like it when I damn them. But, I say it anyway, damn the omnics! You understand, yes? Australia, what they did to your land?”  
  
He paused.  
  
***

* * *

  
  
_For a moment, he thought he could taste the ozone again, from the sky that had been blasted white instead of blue. The air was thick with ash from things that never should have been burning, there were black scorchmarks on the red rocks, and the desert sands had melted into glass. Where the land had once been soft, it now cracked and shattered beneath his boots. How fitting._  
  
_Their government had tried to placate the bots, and had gifted them the desert that he and his family and many others already called home. His wife had written hundreds of letters, sitting at their dining room table well into the night with her chair pulled up as close as her swollen belly would allow. At first, she had assured him that the bad PR would save their land, that the rest of Australia would come to their aid once they found out that the omnics would be seizing their homes. But after the first protests had accomplished nothing and national attention had waned, the deal went on as planned and the Outback was as ignored as it had been before. The omnic machines trampled across the sands and built monstrosities that ate up the horizon. The first skirmishes between the ALF and the omnic patrols happened soon after, though she begged him not to join, maintained that violence would not solve anything. And months later, trying to type with one hand and holding the baby to her breast with the other, she was convinced her little letters and ‘to-whom-it-may-concerns’ could still help save them._  
  
“I say it anyway, damn the omnics! You understand, yes? Australia, what they did to your land?”  
  
_Yeah. Damn the omnics, and damn whoever else it might have been, who had sought to take their homes from them. Omnics, humans, or anything beyond, he would have fought just as viciously. It had mattered little to him whether they bled red or black, only that they bled. They would bleed for trying to steal from his family, just like they deserved._  
  
_But she had been incensed when she found out that he had joined the ALF against her will. She couldn’t understand that he’d had to. Their rows had always been loud and ferocious, but there had never been one like this one. There had been yelling, bellowing, and very non-veiled threats like never before, while the cacophony of their daughter’s wailing held steady in the background, shaking the house like thunder. She had screamed that she couldn’t bear for their girl not to have a father, thrown a can of diced tomatoes at him, then stomped into the bedroom and locked the door to tend to their child- while he left the spaghetti sauce to burn on the stove, storming out into the night._  
  
_They’d both been damned hot-blooded idiots in their younger years. Nowadays, he got tired just thinking about those fights, when he thought about her at all. He tried not to, and was usually successful. No use in worrying about the past or what she might have been like, growing old and gray-haired with him. Again…He had stopped caring for such things a long time ago._  
  
_Those were things that happened before the explosion. Then there were the things that happened after._  
  
_There had been plenty of heads to be cracked, omnic or no, after the explosion. He kept his farm running, after he’d nailed their old bedroom shut and entombed what was inside, to never be opened again. The garden had turned to dust and there was nothing left of the pigs but their ashes and a pen full of bones…but it was still his farm, and he patrolled his territory with silent menace, brutally disposing of any errant scavenger that was unlucky enough to be found. Eventually the word spread and they learned to stay away, and most of the refugees converged on the outskirts of of the ruined omnium, swarming over the wreckage like insects, and building up what would come to be called Junkertown. He’d been fool enough to think that perhaps that had been a sign of recovery, that good things might finally come of it. But that had just been another stupid idea, like all the rest._  
  
_What few remaining omnics had been hunted down with prejudice, and imprisoned and then tortured and slain in front of the cheering hordes of junker spectators. Not that any amount of spilled oil would sate them. When the omnics had run out, they had started hitting the coastal cities for more. And Roadhog knew that it wasn’t for any form of real vengeance, but merely for the sport of it all. He’d taken up a few jobs to procure more omnics for the ring, occasionally. If the newly-founded ‘society’ wanted to sate its bloodlust on a bunch of relatively innocent bots, what was it to him? It was easy money._  
  
_He hadn’t been surprised to see that Adder had survived and then reared her mangy head again, fighting through the ranks until she called herself the Queen. Fitting, for the serpent she had always been. Queen had been another ALF veteran and one of the few people who was supposed to remember what they had fought for…but she had done away with her animal mask and was more intent on building her own empire of ashes and playing at monarch, than lifting up what remained of the people. Not that the people in Junkertown deserved to be lifted up anyway. They were scum, nearly each and every one of them. A worthless kingdom in this worthless wasteland he had once loved. He’d given up everything for their freedom and their homes, only to have them scrabble like rats, fighting and killing each other for scraps._  
  
_And like the vermin they were, Roadhog either exterminated or mostly ignored rats…except for one…_  
  
***

* * *

  
  
“Rutledge! Mako Rutledge!”  
  
There were several popping noises, which he realized was her was snapping her fingers by his ears. He shook his clouded head clear as he heard a voice calling his name, realizing that he had slumped over and was holding his masked face in one immense gloved hand. Grunting, he coughed into the mask’s filters, felt them grind and drag in the air to his always-burning lungs. “Yeah?”  
  
Zarya was looking at him, but her aggression had turned into something approaching a wary concern. “I think…you may be right, about not being good yet, not ready to go confront people. I think we will stay here until they come?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“You went very still, did not move, just making fists. You were seeing something, like I was not there.” She waved a hand in front of his face, until he irritably knocked it away. “Is it like a bad dream, when you get like that?”  
  
“…Yeah. Guess so.”  
  
“Ah…you know…I think it is not so uncommon? You have bad dreams, many of us do.” She frowned down at a hangnail that had broken while she was punching the older junker’s lights out, some time earlier. She set it between her teeth and chewed twice, severing it before spitting it onto the floor. “Mei, she speaks of her bad dreams to me. They are not scary so much as…eh, одинокий. Lonely. She has been through so much. Your rat man, she says he has bad dreams too. Cannot always remember them, but she tries to help him through them. She says they do not get as many now, together… And I get them, from the things I have seen. The things I have seen…My point  is, it is not so uncommon, da?”  
  
“You tell the others about them?”  
  
“I do. Psychological examinations, not so unusual, Overwatch or army or anywhere else. We are expected to work as a team, we must be sure that everyone is sound of mind as well as sound of body. Sometimes the first one is harder than the second one. I will not lie, it is not easy for me. I do not like telling them about my bad dreams, or the things I saw, or the…the things I have done...” For a moment it was her gaze that went far away.  
  
He grumbled aloud. “Don’t tell them, then. What you’ve done is your business, just like what I did…is _my_ business.”  
  
“Your business is my business after you hurt my friend, Mako Rutledge. You cannot keep doing this, not after you hurt Mei and the rat man. If you cannot-”  
  
“No,” he said abruptly, interrupting her. “You stepped in to help Mei. Fine. But fuck off with trying to grandstand about Rat. Stop pretending like you give a shit about him now, or ever did. With either one of us.”  
  
Green eyes met glass lenses, and the atmosphere turned thick with tension once more. Very slowly, she lifted herself from the sofa, which groaned in relief as her weight left its sagging frame. Hog’s shoulders braced slightly, ready to react if she threw herself at him again. She had proven to be just as strong as she always boasted, and the fact that she had lifted him up and effectively groundpounded his skull in was not lost on him, and in his state he was not so keen to repeat it. There would be more than just a few bruises or headaches if the two clashed again…  
  
He was a little taken aback a moment later, when the enormous Russian woman merely rolled her neck and shrugged. “Da, you are right.”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“What? I can admit when I am wrong. Mei was right, you are right. What I did, what I did not do? It was shit. It was a shit thing to do. I did not step in when I should have,” she said. She faced him proudly despite her words, chin up. “I left the rat man to get hurt because I did not like him. I knew you would fight sometimes, you beating him, but I did not know it was because…of your bad dreams, hm? But I knew you hurt him, and I did nothing. I thought it would prove something I wanted to prove. And that is shit, and I was wrong.”  
  
Hog eyed her carefully. A rather poisonous, strange mixture of both admiration and disgust coiled in his immense gut, roiling like the aftermath of the spoiled food he was so used to. He had been expecting another brawl, and instead she had the gall to take blame and admit fault. How easily she admitted that she had gotten it wrong. That she could stand there with her head held high, voice unwavering, and face the fact that she had made a mistake.  
  
Maybe she really was stronger than he was. Fucking preposterous idea though that was.  
  
“Yeah,” he finally managed a few moments later, posture relaxing. “It was shit. But pretty low on the shit meter, considering.”  
  
“Still shit. Even if I do not like him.”  
  
Hog shrugged. “Rat’s hard to like.”  
  
Zarya paced a bit, once more glancing to the doorway. “He is. How is it you stand him for more than five minutes?”  
  
How could one stand having Junkrat around? It was a fair enough question. It was a question he’d asked himself a thousand times, especially when the younger junker was getting on his last nerve- which was often. Most days he was content to let Rat jabber on to himself in hours of one-sided conversation, poke at whatever metal bits he’d found, or obsess over some new plan or dangerous hijink that he’d inevitably forget about if he didn’t write it down.  
  
But there were days when Rat’s voice scraped over his psyche like a rusted cheese grater, when he was ready to squeeze the life out of him for trying to steal his food or blowing up something he shouldn’t have, and he simply wasn’t in the mood to deal with his radiation-addled nonsense anymore. More than once, he’d had Rat by the throat, holding him against the sand with their noses almost pressed together and warning him that enough was enough. But even then, he’d never squeezed that scrawny neck any harder than he needed to. And even on his worst days, Junkrat had enough sense to make himself scarce when Hog was in a foul mood. And when Hog was not ‘himself’, they had always managed to handle it. They had a system, even if outsiders didn’t understand it. They’d made it work.  
  
Hog shrugged again. “You get used to it.”  
  
“Still, I should have done something. Like you said, even if was just to help Mei, I should have helped her…friend,” she said warily. “Or whatever he is to her. Even if I do not like that she is involved with a rat man…”  
  
“Junkrat. Start with his name.”  
  
“Hmph. Junkrat. Just do not make me call him Jamison. Mei calls him Jamison, his real name. It sounds…ugh, intimate. But Junkrat and Roadhog, they are nicknames? All junkers seem to have strange nicknames. What sort of a name is Roadhog? It is because of your motorcycle, or the pig mask?”  
  
She’d gotten it mostly correct, so he just nodded. She returned to not looking at him and staring at the door, so he pretended to watch the game show, even as he kept her in the side of his view. It didn’t seem as funny now, even with the cartoon sound effects added onto the people slipping down a pole and trying not to fall into a pit filled with banana pudding. What a waste. A pit full of banana pudding would have kept the wasteland residents fed for weeks. He, himself, wouldn’t have minded falling into such a pit, or dragging Junkrat down after him, even if nothing the boy ate ever seemed to stick to those scrawny bones of his.  
  
“Have you decided what you are going to do?” Zarya asked.  
  
He grumbled and looked at her again. “Hrmmn?”  
  
“They are going to ask you what has happened here tonight, and all those other nights, and they may ask you to leave. They may ask me to leave too, I am not sure. So, you are going to leave?” She frowned down at her nails, where their battle had chipped her once-flawless polish. “Or are you going to agree to terms and try to stay?”  
  
He snorted inside his mask, the sound grinding through his air filters. “Hmm. Not their business what I do. Guess I’ll leave.”  
  
“So the rat m- Junkrat, he will be leaving too?”  
  
Hog shrugged. “He doesn’t have to.”  
  
She laughed derisively, and he did not like the sound. “From what I understand, the junkers are package deal? You think he will stay here without you?”  
  
“Hm. Mei is here for him. He might s-”  
  
“Do you think. He will stay here. Without you.” The way she said it was a little harsher, turning back enough to glare at him again.  
  
There was another one of his long periods of silence before he begrudgingly answered, “No.”  
  
It was true enough. Their system worked and they had made fine partners. The boy had latched onto him more fiercely than a leech…sometimes literally, like all the times when Roadhog had awoken to Rat snoring and snuggled against his arm, only to be shaken loose and physically thrown back onto his sleeping bag. They had torn a path of chaos across the world, stealing and plundering as they saw fit, with Rat’s boundless creativity anchored by Hog as his mostly silent guardian. And though he’d never admitted it, it had been a welcome change from his brooding and wandering around his ruined farm. True, he was usually the one who had to yank Junkrat out of the path of his own explosions, but those explosions sometimes came from Junkrat rigging a drink machine or a pachimari claw game, if only because he knew Hog liked them…  
  
Zarya, as always, was having none of it. “So you will both go back to Australia.”  
  
“Guess so.”  
  
“Eh. Somewhat of a shame,” she said, casually leaning back into the ragged cushions. “Mei will be so sad.”  
  
“Finally will get what you wanted, then.” Hog said.  
  
“I have already admitted to being wrong and said as much, don’t be a shit about it,” she said brusquely. “I have changed my mind. You are more interesting than I gave credit for, originally. You could do more, here. And I do not want Mei to be sad. She will be heartbroken without your friend. So. I hope you will stay, instead.”  
  
“…Pull the other one.”  
  
“Do you have plans back in Australia?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Then stay here, get good pay, work for something good for once, whatever reason you like,” she said, pointing at him sternly. “I will help you. We will go to the doctors here, we will tell them what happened. We will face our punishment and face our friends, but know it is worth it. ‘Oorah!”  
  
“Piss off.” He replied, turning away.  
  
There was a sudden scraping noise that almost startled him. Zarya was shoving the cobbled-together metal monstrosity of a coffee table towards him, almost crashing it into his knees, before suddenly sitting down on the other side of it with a heavy thud. Rolling up the sleeve of her blood-spattered track jacket, she rolled her neck and shoulders with an audible pop, shoving away the piles of magazines and loose trash onto the floor before slamming her elbow down onto it. Staring up at him expectantly with those green eyes of hers, she set her jaw.  
  
“Arm wrestle me.” She demanded.  
  
“Hmgh?”  
  
“512 kilograms, that is my record. What is yours?”  
  
“Dunno.” He said, which was true enough. Bars and bikie clubs didn’t have official numbers. He ranked himself by the number of humerus bones he had shattered, not referee-officiated weight competitions.  
  
“Come on, svin’ya,” she said. “I am tired of waiting, and you must be tired of waiting. If I win, you will let me help you, and come with me to the others. Competition! The best form of communication, junker. If you think you are good to try, come on.”  
  
He sighed heavily. His head was still sore from the concrete-smashing it had gone through earlier, but the game show was failing to hold his attention and the woman seemed keen to her contests. And there was an undeniable itching beneath his skin, deadened nerves tired of waiting for something to happen. Delusions about ‘helping him’ or not, it would be better than sitting and talking about it all. He was never much for talking, even if he had spoken more to the Russian than he had spoken to anyone else on the base in months. Rather awkwardly, he hefted himself out of the sagging cushions and lowered onto his armored knees, adjusting his immense gut as he knelt down before the table as well, placing one elbow atop it.  
  
“And if I win?” he asked.  
  
“I do not know. What if you win? Bah, take off your rings and knuckles before we start, no need for weapons for this one. You face the queen of Overwatch’s arm-wrestling force now.”  
  
Hog snorted derisively at that, but acquiesced, sliding off his gloves and rings before placing them aside. “…Never thought much of women who call themselves queens,” he said. “Removed the rings though. Heh. That’s it. If I win…the ‘queen’ kisses the ring of the new king.”  
  
“Bah. If you win, I will kiss your ring, your boots, and whatever is beneath that pig mask,” she said. “I say this, because I know you will not win.”  
  
He paused to think that one over. Didn’t sound half bad, really. Nodding with a low affirmative rumble, he mused aloud, “Overconfident.”  
  
“Just confident enough, Mako Rutledge. You agree to the winning terms?”  
  
“…Yeah.”  
  
He liked her, he decided. She was too proud and more than a little haughty and stubborn, that was clear enough, but she wasn’t afraid of him in the least, and thought nothing of challenging him, verbally or physically. Roadhog was not used to people challenging him. Well, Junkrat challenged his patience frequently and especially verbally, since he talked enough for ten people. On the other hand, Mei’s polite manners and doe-eyed sweetness unnerved him at times, unused to such things. Zaryanova had no time for bullshit, was unafraid to voice her thoughts or opinions, and settled things with raw strength, because she could. And being a man who had also always settled things with raw strength, that was something he could respect…doubly so, if she could actually back it up.  
  
He slammed one huge hand into hers, and she did not flinch, even as his thick fingers folded over much smaller ones, decorated with pink paint just as his were coated with black, and both of them stained with blood splatter from before. Her little smirk grew into a grin, with almost enough eager and malicious glee to rival Junkrat’s, and she braced herself against the table.  
  
“You are ready?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
She nodded, and counted down. “Три…два…один!”  
  
On cue, he shoved his arm opposite hers, aiming to slam it to the table as he’d done to so many up-and-comers before. He found a wall of resistance instead, as the Russian woman’s biceps strained and she pushed back. Not entirely surprising, coming from the self-proclaimed ‘queen’, but…refreshing, somehow. She struggled against his arm’s weight, her breath heaving steadily as her face slowly reddened and she went nearly cross-eyed with focus. Sweat started to pop onto her forehead, and her cheeks puffed as she valiantly fought against the junker’s more than considerable might.  
  
Fucking magnificent, really.  
  
His own grip tightened in his other hand, digging into the metal coffee table to hard that it started to scrape and dent. Grunting behind the filters of his mask, he inhaled and tried to adjust his grip, ignoring the scrape of her fingernails digging into the rough skin around his knuckles. He felt her adjust her elbow, doing something to the angle of the incline…He’d seen it done once before, by a bikie in Oodnadatta. Top Rolling, it was called. Something or other to do with the triceps…He couldn’t entirely remember, but he knew enough to deny it, moving his elbow and countering her movement enough that her grip faltered several inches.  
  
Her eyes darted to meet where his would have been, covered by blank lenses. Her arm was starting to shake, and it looked like she was starting to have a bit more trouble. Judging by her gritted teeth, she wanted to say something to him, probably spit venom his way, but couldn’t waste the breath. He managed a guttural chuckle somewhere beneath the hissing of his mask, and her gaze turned to pure murder. It looked good on her, and peaked his interest enough that he decided to bait it further.  
  
Very subtly, above their straining, shaking grips against one another, he tilted his masked head. Then did it again, as if gesturing to look. At first she didn’t, hardly one to fall for such a simplistic trick as that. But after a few more little glances and nudges, the greenness of her eyes flashed as they darted to the side, before she saw what he was trying to gesture to. There, in the pile of discarded spiked knuckles and leather gloves, was his collection of glittering rings. The rings she would be kissing as penalty for her loss.  
  
Teeth scraped and she pressed her lips together and huffed another breath. “ _Ffhgghh…_ ” was all she could really manage, and even that was enough to get her message across as Roadhog chuckled again.  
  
That was when her elbow slipped, a new bruises to be added as it rubbed and scraped an inch or two out of position. Her angle was lost, and she felt herself start to give way. And there was no recovery to be had, not when the immense junker started bending her straining arm dangerously close towards the tabletop. Her eyes widened slightly, and though she pushed back with all her considerable might, it was already over. With a gasp, she let her arm go, and immediately it was crushed by his own, covering it completely as he pressed her onto the table.  
  
For a minute there was nothing but the sound of heavy breathing, hers high-pitched and rapid, and the ever-present grind of his mask. She looked down to her arm, then to him, then back again, as if unwilling to believe what had just happened.  
  
“Overconfident.” Hog said.  
  
The whole thing had been surprisingly enjoyable, even after all that had happened. Maybe she was right about competition being the best form of communication. She still seemed a little stunned, running a hand through her pink-dyed locks before straightening her posture regally once more, even as she tried to rub the feeling back into her arm, rolling her shoulder enough that the 512 inked onto her shoulder stretched and warped from the effort.  
  
“Well…I did not expect it,” she said after a moment. “Congratulations to you, Mako Rutledge.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
They stared at each other over the coffee table, and she stiffly went to reach towards the pile of rings, the golden bands that spelled out LEFT on his fist, and was the last word that some people ever saw. Apparently she intended to honor their agreement, good sport that she was. He had to admit it would be satisfying, seeing her lips against the cold metal, maybe leaving behind some of that pink color as evidence of his triumph.  
  
Instead, he abruptly reached out, resting the tips of his thick fingers against her arm and stilling her. She lifted a brow at him in question.  
  
“Hmmgh,” he rumbled. “Best two out of three…?”


	7. 7

The back of his hand slammed into the tabletop with such force that the whole metal structure rattled, and he groaned and rubbed at his sore arm. The first round he had won by her slipped elbow, but she had put up more than a worthy fight after that. She won the next two, lost the fourth, won the fifth, and by that time he had forgotten if he had upped the bet or not, and whether or not he had to accept her help or she had to kiss his rings.  
  
Zarya was certainly…different. She’d always seemed so somber and responsible on the field, but that had been the only times he had ever truly paid much attention to her. During competitions, even little ones like arm-wrestling, it turned out she was a vivacious and enthusiastic braggart, and loud enough to rival Junkrat himself. Wiping away the sweat on her forehead, she sat back, and rolled her arm, still smirking and ready for another.  
  
“Will nobody else challenge Zaryanova! Must I bring Doomfist himself to the arena!” She raised both arms and cupped a hand around one ear as if she could hear a cheering crowd yell back at her.  
  
“…Only lost the most important one,” Roadhog pointed out, snorting a laugh at the dirty look he received in reply.  
  
“Eh! You are the one who extended the bet. Although…Wait, how long have we been doing this?” She was brought back to reality, glancing to the door again. “I thought they would be here by now. I am sorry, my friend, but we cannot wait any longer. The Junkman and Mei are still unaccounted for and hurt, we cannot ignore that. Up. Up.”  
  
He lifted one scarred brow at the words ‘my friend’, but merely nodded slowly. “Mm…”  
  
She stood, and he watched her head for the communicator panel by the door. She was right. They didn’t know the extent of Junkrat and Mei’s injuries, and that had been at least an hour ago. He liked to think the two were probably off arguing or…doing other things…as they often did. But there was always a very high possibility of Junkrat laying injured in a ditch somewhere, at any given point in time. And Mei…She hadn’t deserved this. But, a lot of things seemed to happen to her that she never really deserved. Junkrat too, the idiot. And the way Zarya spoke, probably her as well. Didn’t really deserve their misfortunes, any of them.  
  
Unlike him, who deserved everything he got.  
  
She paused very suddenly, her hand just above the control panel for the door. Turning back to him, she shook her head. “Oh. I almost forgot. We did not speak of the prizes.”  
  
“The prizes?” He had almost forgotten them completely.  
  
He’d won the first round and most important one, but had kept the bet going after that. He wasn’t entirely sure where they had ended up, but at some point he’d been on the losing side a few times in a row, and likely had lost the third out of five…Which would end with him allowing her to ‘help’ him get back into Overwatch’s good damn graces again, even if it was mostly because she wanted it more than he did.  
  
He doubted that only a few of them really gave a shit as far as Junkrat’s health, or his own. But he’d hurt Mei. Of all people on the base, he’d hurt one of the smallest and most beloved, because of course he would. He still wasn’t entirely sure why the Russian was bothering…She could likely get a lighter punishment just by staying out of things and being the good soldier she was supposed to be.  
  
The pink of her hair was flecked with little speckles of reddish-brown as she tilted her head. “The prizes. I did not forget. We will…exchange winning bets, yes?”  
  
He remembered her words keenly. ‘ If you win, I will kiss your ring, your boots, and whatever is beneath that pig mask,’ she had said. If she had been anyone else, he might have really taken her to task for it. Her overconfidence and boastful nature had driven her to promise all those things to him, after all. He had never much considered himself a gentleman, even before he was Roadhog, but likely it would just be better for them to both to just demand the first part of their bet, just the bit with the rings-  
  
“Which part do you want first?” Zarya said impatiently.  
  
“…Hm?” He turned his massive head to her, blinking behind his lenses.  
  
“I remember our bet,” she replied, folding her massive arms and pulling down her blood-spattered track suit sleeves. “I am holding you to your end, you must hold me to mine. Which do you want first?”  
  
That was surprising, to be sure. For a moment, even he wasn’t sure how to answer. Finally he shook his immense head, waving her off. “Hmmm…Don’t wanna kiss these boots. Not where they’ve been.”  
  
She shrugged. “The rings, then?”  
  
“…The rings, yeah…Grrrngh…” He rumbled, feeling strangely…uncomfortable? He was often uncomfortable, yes, but not in this particular way. He never put himself into situations that would ever result in him feeling this way. Those green eyes were staring at him in a very expectant sort of way that he hadn’t seen in…how many years had it been?  
  
Awkward. That was the word. When was the last time he’d felt this awkward? He didn’t want to think about that right now.  
  
“Uhr…Hmm…” He was unsure why he felt this way, seeing as he was the one who had decided on that particular prize in the first place.  
  
She looked a little smug at his sudden hesitation, even rolling her eyes a little before gesturing to his enormous hands. “Put them on, then.”  
  
Something inside him rankled a bit. Nobody truly ordered Roadhog to do anything he did not wish to do. Even Junkrat, who was technically his employer and tried in vain to be ‘the boss’ persona inside his addled head, had never truly been the one in charge. If Roadhog wished to do something, he did it on his own terms. So why was he reaching over the table, gathering up the golden rings in one palm and sorting through them, before swiftly slipping them back into place around his fingers? They covered the tan lines and pale bands across dark flesh that had been long scorched by the sun, the clinking of metal and gold paint clacking against one another giving him a curious sense of comfort and familiarity. It felt right to have them back on.  
  
What did not feel right was the way her hand was suddenly upon his, taking his immense fist into her grip and starting to rise it to her waiting lips.  
  
_Shit_. No, that wasn’t supposed to be happening, was it? Behind the protective blank glass of his lenses, his eyes widened slowly. Her lips, painted a lighter shade of magenta pink, slowly lowered and pursed, and he watched as silently as ever as their softness was pressed flat to the embossed golden surface of the L. They stayed there for just a moment, before peeling up and away. Then they moved downward once more, to the E. Tilting his fist in her much smaller grip, the F and the T soon followed, their golden surfaces marred by the scattered patterns of pink. Such a pretty mouth against his jewelry, and for once it didn’t involve flying teeth or crunching bone.  
  
L. E. F. T. The rings were done, and he sat there like a big fat fucking idiot as she suddenly chuckled and then abruptly pitched his fist back at him. He looked down at the rings in a very stupid way, muttering something or other about ‘that being done’, and then looked back at her, clearly expecting her to open the door and get on with it.  
  
No go. She was just staring at him in that expectant manner again. “If not the boots, then the rest of it? I do not back down from my bets.”  
  
She was serious, then. Well, best to get on with it. It might have been…a while…and perhaps she really was just doing this for that silly wager she’d made in the heat of the moment, although there was a very light flush to her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. Fear? No, not fear. Desire? Surely not. Embarrassment? Probably embarrassment. Maybe. Although that did not explain why she had stepped forward and gotten very close to him all of a sudden.  
  
Only Junkrat had seen what lay beneath the swinish veneer he always wore, and even then he often forgot and had been surprised all over again when Roadhog removed his mask. Even Dr. Ziegler had not been able to get him to relinquish it, though she had fervently tried, and had remarked more than once on his complete lack of hesitation on removing his pants compared to removing his pig mask. But none of them understood its meaning. How could they? And Zarya was just another of them.  
  
He held up one thick finger. “Wait.”  
  
“You do not want-?”  
  
“Fine. But. No looking,” he said, gesturing to his face. He saw her about to roll her eyes and protest, but cut her off before she could do so, yet again. “No.”  
  
“Then how will I know where to-”  
  
He lifted up from his slouched posture, rearing over her. He could tell she was not used to such things. Zarya was a large woman in almost all aspects, and clearly used to being the one doing the looming. But she held her ground, merely looking up at him with her jaw set in determination. Fine. If this was how she wished to play things, he could play along…to a certain point.  
  
“My win, my terms,” he said, in a low tone which barred any more nonsense on the matter.  
  
“…Very well, Mako Rutledge,” she said evenly, her gaze unmoving.  
  
He narrowed his eyes a little behind the mask, but nodded. With both hands, he reached up and slowly undid the latches, clicking one by one until he felt them give, holding the mask in place. She looked on, unflinching and waiting.  
  
He leaned forward slowly, lifting one huge hand as his calloused palm settled over her face, thick fingers curling to cover her eyes. He didn’t have as much feeling in his hands as he used to, more accustomed to having bruised knuckles and dried blood under his nails… but he could swear he felt a wetness there. Or perhaps it was merely his imagination. But she didn’t need to see his face and he couldn’t stand to see those eyes of hers, as he slowly brought up his other hand to push up the bottom of his mask, peeling away the swinish veneer just enough to free his mouth, holding it up above his lips and blocking his own vision. The comforting presence of the mask’s gas filters gave way to the burn of real air and the smell of her, and he kept her eyes covered as he brought his scarred lips to brush against hers in a rusty and ill-practiced kiss that would have shamed his younger self.  
  
She tasted like anger, pain, and cheap lip gloss that didn’t resemble any real fruit he knew of. And she was eerily silent, barely breathing as her posture remained tense. That was no good, and he knew he could do better. When he kissed her again, her lips pressed back against him. So he tried again, and he should have ended it there. But as with so many other foolish decisions, he did the exact opposite of what he should have done.  
  
Her mouth opened and he took the invitation, pushing his tongue forward and finding hers. Her mouth was sweet and more than a little bitter, overpowering the taste of the the stale hogdrogen from his mask. Whatever he might have tasted like to her, she didn’t seem to mind. At all. When he felt the scrape of nails against his chest, he realized she was trying to pull herself on top of him in a very different way than before.  
  
He swallowed. Hard.  
  
Wasn’t the first time he’d had people throw themselves at him, both men and women. But usually theirs was an act of desperation or sabotage or some misguided notion that they might endear themselves for his protection. When he’d been younger, he’d taken a few of them up on it before tossing them aside, after being done with them. But this was one woman he couldn’t simply toss aside, especially after she’d physically tossed him earlier.  
  
She sat astride his lap, leaning on the curve of his wide belly, pressing in with both massively strong legs on either side of him. She kissed him again and he started to bring both hands up towards her face as he shifted uncomfortably beneath her. The armored belt he wore, with the license plate grill and buckle at the front of his trousers, suddenly felt very tight and restricting. Especially with the way those legs, stronger than iron shackles, kept him in place as she started to very subtly grind against him. Safe to say that he felt stirrings of a sort that he had not felt so strongly in a long, long time.  
  
Maybe just a little bit would be all right. Something quick and without passion, before they went on with business as usual? How long had it been? Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if he had a little fun. It had been such a long time, after all. If he did this. If he did this… would it feel anything like _her_?  
  
_Mako, take care of yourself out there._  
  
…  
  
That’s what she had said.  
  
But this wasn’t her. And Mako was dead. Everyone was dead and he had killed them. And here he was, kissing a woman nearly twenty years his junior and entertaining some foolish notion that it would be anything like the old days. There were no old days. Not anymore. This had been a bad idea, just one more bad idea to add to all the other bad ideas he’d ever inflicted on the world. The old Mako was gone, and only Roadhog was left. And Roadhog cared nothing for this.  
  
He pulled his lips away and tried to ignore the way her face moved to follow his, as hungry and touch-starved as they both were. He started to sit up, and loosened his grip until he let her go altogether. Her grasp on his vest faltered, and she slid down from him in a clear mixture of resignation and disappointment. She sat up quickly, cheeks rosy and embarrassed and almost the same shade as her hair, as she smoothed her locks back to have something else to do with her hands.  
  
“Ah. Sorry,” she said. “It was my mistake.”  
  
“Hrmm…”  
  
“Извини, что я нагрубил… Sorry, I should not have done that. We shouldn’t… Da, it was nothing,” she said more assuredly, still refusing to look at him.  
  
“Wait,” the junker said quickly, lifting a hand. “It’s not that. It’s not _you_. It’s…” He trailed off when he realized there was nothing he could really say.  
  
Zarya laughed bitterly. “You just used ‘ _It’s not you, it’s me_ ’ line on me, Mako Rutledge?”  
  
She had him there, and he withdrew with a low sigh. “...Yeah.”  
  
“It is fine. Strange night, everyone acting crazy. Even me, kissing a pig mask man... Acting crazy, that is all.” She buried her face in both hands, rubbing them down her tired features and grasping her chin as she looked at the TV. It had gone into standby mode long ago and she hadn’t even noticed. “Put on that funny show, please. Give me a minute. Then we can go.”  
  
“Ghhm,” he grunted, glancing around for the remote. “Listen, it’s not-”  
  
“You are right, it is not anything. I agree, it is nothing,” she said, a little more harshly. “No sorries needed. None of my business, just like before. You were in a bad place, I should not have done anything. I was just acting crazy, it is a bad night, got carried away. Always. I get too carried away, I kiss too hard, I start to go too crazy, come on too strong or I say what I do not mean, it is too much, and then they leave. You are not the first, think nothing of it. Put on the show, please.”  
  
“Wasn’t bad,” he said, and cringed inwardly at how lame and weak it sounded, how patronizing. “Wasn’t bad. Just…can’t. Now.”  
  
She still wasn’t really looking at him, or the blank-screened television. She didn’t seem to be looking at anything, gaze far away and a little downcast behind her ink-darkened eyelashes. She muttered something in Russian that he couldn’t really hear nor understand. Frustration, perhaps. It didn’t even sound like she was angry at him in particular so much as something else…herself, maybe.  
  
He knew what that was like.  
  
“You don’t have to tell ‘em,” he suggested.  
  
“Tell them?”  
  
“About that. Any of that. You don’t have to tell them anything.”  
  
“Hmph. Maybe. Maybe not. It was just a kiss, part of the bet. Besides, what good is there in keeping secrets now? Maybe I’m tired of secrets, Mako Rutledge.” She fumbled with the sleeve of her track jacket, looking down with some dismay where she found several popped threads and a tear from their wrestling earlier. “It was foolish, to make you do that. To make those wagers. Apologies for that.”  
  
“Didn’t make me,” he admitted. Which was true enough. Some part of him had wanted to. Definitely wanted to, and just couldn’t.  
  
“You do not have to tell them about it either, you do not have to come with me. I will go.”  
  
“The hell’s that?” he grumbled. “I don’t back down from my bets. You don’t, either. You held up your end.” He slowly tilted his masked head at her. An unexpected turn of events, to be sure. She was at least being honest about this being a very strange night. He lifted one enormous hand, hovering over her tattooed shoulder for a moment before finally coming down. “…Still gonna go with you.”  
  
It wasn’t really an honor thing. Honor didn’t matter much in the Outback at the end of the day, and he left such things to the people who cared more about it, like the German and his squire. But they’d made their bets and she’d been good for it, and she’d even manage to best him a few times. He could still taste the sour cherry-like flavor on his scarred lips from her loss, was only fair and square to take his part of the loss as well. Besides…it unnerved him to see her so frazzled and vulnerable, best thing to do was fix his part in it. Might be the only decent thing he’d done in a long time.  
  
She had her own problems. Apparently this wasn’t the first time she’d come on to someone like a goddamn charging bull, just like she’d said. And with very bad timing. Likely she was wrestling with her own proverbial demons, whatever they were. Zaryanova was strong, there was no doubting that. But he was strong too. He knew what it was like to be strong, but just never strong enough. Strong enough to snap the bones of all the little ones gathered around them, but just not strong enough to keep them safe. Going through life from one challenge to the next, with so many of them ending in failure or tragedy, because they just didn’t have enough strength when it truly mattered.  
  
Perhaps this was a recurring issue with her, pursuing other strong people that she should not have pursued. Maybe in some misguided notion that they would be strong enough to handle her, and finally be able to scratch the itch she couldn’t reach herself. She was still young, after all, even if war had made her older in some ways. It did that to people, left them lingering in some weird in-between place, a dark place that he’d been in since he was around the same age.  
  
She glanced to his hand, but then looked away again, still frowning.  
  
He usually liked the quiet, but for once, he had the overwhelming urge to fill it with words. To tell her that it was no idiotic placation, that it really was not her. It was just…him.  
  
She still wouldn’t look at him.  
  
“Her eyes were green too,” he finally said. In the ensuing silence, he added a low, “But no scar.”  
  
“…What?”  
  
“Hmmm…My…” He trailed off again. Didn’t wanna have to say it.  
  
She blinked several times when she realized what his unspoken words were, clearly having not expected such candid honesty from the mercenary, especially not so suddenly. Several expressions crossed her face all at once, all jumbled together; understanding, anger, sadness, resentment, embarrassment… but then settled on a kind of tired resignation. It was an expression that perhaps seemed a bit overly familiar on her features, even if few others ever saw it on her.  
  
With that look still on her face, she approached him again, and for a moment he worried that she might try to kiss him again. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she did. Not a second time. But he did not have to worry, when instead she put both arms around his thick neck and embraced him. Bowing her forehead until he could feel the rough patch of scar tissue against his collarbone, she simply rested there against him in silence for a while before mumbling one low, soft phrase.  
  
“I am sorry.”  
  
Couldn’t be entirely sure what she meant; whether she was sorry for coming on too strong, or sorry about his wife, or the color of her eyes, or what she had done, or a billion other things. He had a strong feeling that it could be encompassed by ‘everything’. Sorry for everything. Still processing that, he just stood there, still unused to contact that didn’t involve bloodshed. The grinding of his mask filters was the only sound, until he finally responded with the same affirmative rumble he used for most everything.  
  
“…Mmmm.”  
  
One massive arm lifted up to place itself on her back, holding it there. He was glad she didn’t start crying or arguing or asking him questions about her. She didn’t need to know about his wife, or their daughter, the mask, or anything else. And thank fuck she didn’t try to comfort him on the matter, like Mei or the others might have done. She also didn’t launch into anything he didn’t need to know; what she had done, the hardships she had endured as well, who she had killed… She said absolutely nothing at all, and that was much better. This, he could handle, just standing there with his hand on her back and her arms around his neck and saying nothing to each other.  
  
Her grip loosened and she slid just a step back from him, hands still on his shoulders as his masked face tilted down at her.  
  
She offered him a half-hearted, still sad smile, and he could see where the pink paint had come off most of her lips. “Come, my friend, we still need t-”  
  
There was an abrupt whooshing noise as the front door slid open, and Junkrat was standing there on the front stoop.  
  
“Oi! Roadie! Y’won’t bloody believe it, mate, she won’t e…ven…talk…”  
  
His words faded away as his good eye glinted radiant gold and widened, and the other one could be seen trying to do the same, stopped only by being surrounded by dark blue swollen flesh squeezing it shut. His gaze darted from his bodyguard, to the Russian woman he was currently holding to him in what looked to be a lover’s embrace. To make it worse, Zarya stepped away from him in a very panicked way, straightening her posture and uttering a little formal coughing sound. Roadhog was left to stand there, his arm dropping away from her back, and looking very, very guilty.  
  
For a moment he just stared, before Junkrat twitched very strangely, eye ticcing as his lips pulled back to reveal sharp bared teeth, still missing his gold one. Even through the swelling bruises, his expression contorted from surprise to rage. Lifting one hand, he pointed at them, jabbing his index finger like he wanted to stab them both with it.  
  
“ _ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING ME?!_ ”

* * *

  
  
  
“ _YA DRONGO! YA DIPSHIT! YA ABSOLUTE FUCKING CUNT_!”  
  
“Rat…” Roadhog warned.  
  
“ _CAUGHT YA IN THE ACT_!” Junkrat surged forward, eyes still blazing as he stretched up to his full height and went to face Roadhog head on, grabbing onto his vest and slamming his already bruised forehead into the pig mask so he could stare right into the lenses, even though Hog knew he couldn’t see through them. The boy’s voice rose to a screech, pitch going up and down at random and making him sound even more deranged than usual. “You beat the piss outta me, mate! Again! And who gives a shit about that, but you hurt my Mei! Was this all part of your plan?!” He jammed his good eye against the glass. “You were just mad, weren’t ya! Mad cause I had a girl and you didn’t! Caught ya in the act, I did! S’not fair! I leave you alone for five fuckin’ minutes and you go and seduce the big Russian dill while I’m bowing and scrapin’ to mine, and she won’t even talk to me!” Rat turned on Zarya next, bellowing at her as well. “ _SHE WON’T EVEN TALK TO ME!_ ”  
  
“Rat,” Roadhog said, a little more firmly but not moving to push him off. “No.”  
  
Zarya frowned severely, folding her arms. “Where is Mei? She is not with you? Is she all right?”  
  
“I wouldn’t fucking know, would I?” Junkrat snarled, peeling himself off of Roadhog’s chest and turning on the woman with no small amount of ferocity. “She won’t come out of her room, won’t even talk to me. Tried everything, I did, I did all the things y’said! Tried to be nice, and groveled and begged and apologized, and even-”  
  
He froze suddenly, eyes narrowing at her as he took a step forward, as Zarya tensed up and brought one arm up in clear defense, leaning away from him.  
  
“Y’gave me bad advice just t’fuck with me, didn’t you?!”  
  
She glared back. “What? I did no such th-”  
  
“Didn’t like that I was rooting your little pal, s’that it? Jealousy, that’s the rub! Or maybe you was just trying to get me out of here, so you could put th’ moves on my best mate!” He jabbed a finger at her again, and snarled a little when she brusquely slapped it away from her.  
  
“Do not touch me, junk man!”  
  
Roadhog uttered a grinding sigh as he stepped forward. “Zarya, don’t…”  
  
“Oh-ho-ho! First name basis now, is it!” He turned on Hog once more. “S’clear now! You’re in cahoots! You planned this together!”  
  
“Do you ever listen to yourself, Junkrat?” Zarya asked with a clearly frustrated snort.  
  
“Of fuckin’ course I listen to myself! Nobody else listens to me!”  
  
The calm mood from earlier had been thoroughly ruined with all the screeching, and the pounding in Roadhog’s head had returned. Dealing with Junkrat was already difficult enough when his mood was like this, and now the younger junker was in a rare form of crisis mode. Although there might have been very good reasons for that, especially with Mei going into hiding to get away from him…from both of them. Hog was the cause of this, yet again. Doing a pretty shite job as a bodyguard, really.  
  
With a low rumble, Roadhog reached into his pocket, pulling out Junkrat’s lost gold tooth. Pinching it delicately by the root, brushing away the dust and a chunk of pink gum still attached to it, he offered it out to his cohort. Junkrat’s wild gaze flickered from between his mask and his missing tooth, and when he bared his teeth at him, there was a black gap where the missing fang ought to have gone. With a violent swing, the younger junker knocked the tooth away, sending it bouncing with humorous little plinking noises across the cement floor, finally rolling to a stop near an abandoned engine block.  
  
Hog watched it go, slowly lowering his massive hand back to his side.  
  
Junkrat backed away from him, shaking his head. Even worse than the half-feral look in his eyes, something much more human and stricken bubbled underneath his surface, only kept at bay by his addled brain’s inability to form a cohesive thought of anything. His voice was choked with a mix of sorrow and anger. Mostly anger. “…Y’fucked me up somethin’ good this time, mate…”  
  
Hog nodded. “Yeah…”  
  
Neither of them said anything more for a few moments.  
  
Zarya lifted both hands in a placating motion. “Listen, Junkrat, calm down. We must calm down. We can still fix it. We will go find Mei, and go tell them about-”  
  
“What’s this ‘we’ stuff? Who’s gonna go find Mei! Who gives a shit about Mei!” Junkrat snapped at her before she could finish, though his own words sounded like they caused him pain to say. Trilling a whine through his broken teeth, he seized at his hair and pulled, stomping in the other direction. “Who gives a shit about any of ya!”  
  
“Rat.”  
  
“No! Fuck! Fuck you, Roadhog! The deal’s off, by the by! Was gonna give you a tidy 50% share, no foolin’. That’s a king’s ransom, that was. But I’m takin’ it back, and even then it ain’t gonna do shit to pay for what you done! Stay here with your new lady pal, and you know what, you can have my old lady pal while you’re at it.” He kicked open the door to his room, vanishing inside. There was a loud series of crashes and bangs, followed by cursing, from within.  
  
Zarya gave Roadhog a rather helpless and awkward look, wincing very slightly at every new noise emanating from Junkrat’s den. “What…is he doing…?”  
  
Roadhog shook his head and waited.  
  
A few minutes later, Junkrat re-appeared, with a heavy leather duffel bag slung over one shoulder. Hugging it to his side, he sidled along the far wall and eyed the garage’s two other inhabitants with seething, wary hatred. Roadhog looked again, and saw what it was. Rat always kept an emergency on-the-lam bag ready to go, wherever they went. When they were on the run from the law together, they’d had to rely on those supplies more than once. Only this time, his employer was only holding enough for one.  
  
“Rat, don’t,” Hog said again.  
  
Junkrat ignored him and passed right on by, limping rapidly for the door and slamming it open with one palm. It hissed open, a light gray on the horizon promising the first light of false dawn. He turned on his peg, fixing his once-partner with that piercing yellow stare, which turned all the darker when Zarya reached out an arm as if to comfort his erstwhile ‘protector’. Growling softly, he stood in the entry.  
  
“Ya know somethin’, Roadie. I know it ain’t your fault,” he said, voice still strained. “Know ya don’t mean it.”  
  
Roadhog just seemed to stand there, and Zarya was the one to try to stop him again. “Junkman. Junkrat. Do not do this. Your friend here, he is staying, Mei is staying, you should stay with them. There is still time-”  
  
“Just ‘cos he don’t mean it…he still did it. S’all fucked up now, ain’t it? S’all gone. Blown all to hell, and for once I didn’t set the charges.” His lanky shoulders slumped for a moment, then he straightened back up with fierce conviction. “Well, nothin’ left for a bloke here! I’m off!”  
  
Lifting his metal hand, his middle digit flashed at them both, before he shouldered his bag and left. The door slammed shut behind him.

* * *

  
  
  
“What now! Can he just leave? He cannot just leave!” Zarya motioned frantically to the doorway yet again. “Go after him! Do you want me to drag him back! I will go get him!”  
  
Roadhog shook his head. Going after him would be a fool’s errand and he knew it. They were both too large and too slow. Junkrat was not an easy rodent to catch even at the best of times, much less now. Besides…couldn’t really blame him for leaving. Not really.  
  
“We will put the base in lockdown so he cannot go,” the Russian was saying, apparently not understanding. “I have to go find Mei and see if she is all right. Where is your communicator? I will call the gorilla and the medics. We cannot wait anymore.”  
  
Hog still just stood there, seemingly frozen.  
  
Zarya’s frantic words were instead interrupted by a knock at the door. Her expression fell into one of visible relief, striding over and pressing the controls to open it. “Rat Man! Good, you are…Oh. Oh no.”  
  
Her faltering words made Roadhog look over, and he saw why. It was not Junkrat standing on the stoop, but the much smaller and somehow more imposing form of Ana Amari. Lifting her chin slightly, the former Captain took a step inside, her single eye roving about the little room. Everything was still a mess, with overturned furniture, strewn tools and garbage, and blood splatters all over the floor. And of course, her gaze was immediately drawn to the glint of Junkrat's golden tooth, abandoned on the ground.  
  
Zarya took a step away, straightening back into her guilty military composure and staring straight ahead. “Captain Amari. Um.”  
  
The old medic tutted softly, stepping over a puddle of red as she looked between the two. With a smile that didn’t entirely reach her eye, she folded her arms behind her and cleared her throat.  
  
“So,” she said, in that gentle and grandmotherly tone that nobody in their right mind would ever dare challenge, “…Who would like to start explaining first?”


	8. 8

Mei heard a small ruckus outside her door for the hundredth time that night. This time, it sounded like a faint whirring noise, after what had been a several minutes-long pause. Had that brute of a junker gone and gotten a drill, just to make one last bid to try and get into her room? Hadn’t he done enough damage for one night? Couldn’t he understand why she didn’t want to see him? If he really was trying to break in, he had another thing coming.  
  
Snowball heard it too, flashing a few exclamation points on its screen and zooming over towards the door as if to listen, before turning and offering her several question marks.  
  
Scowling and holding the ice pack to her still-aching skull, she went to stomp over towards her door…and was quickly reminded that the motion of stomping hurt her even more. So she gingerly shuffled as angrily as she could over towards her door, and hit the voice controls outside to tell him off.  
  
“I said to go away, Jamison! Go tell Mr. Roadhog and Zarya that they just need to wait until the medics come. And they’re going to help them. And th-they’re going…to help you…” She angrily wiped at one eye as it started to trickle again. “Even if you don’t think you need it, they’re going to help you…”  
  
There was still that whirring sound from the other side of the door.  
  
“Jamie, I mean it! Whatever you’re doing, you had better stop! This isn’t funny anym-”  
  
There was a buzz as the other end of the voice control lit up. And a voice that was definitely not Jamison Fawkes answered her.  
  
“Sorry for the noise, Mei-Ling, but I wanted to get this cleaned up before it causes more trouble. If you’d please open the door for me? I’ve made you some tea. Yansoon tea isn’t my favorite, really, but I think it might help your nerves a bit.”  
  
“M-Ms. Amari?”  
  
She hit the pad again, and the door opened to reveal the old sniper standing there at her door like she was just paying her just any old late night housecall. Dressed in her pajamas and wearing her eyepatch and a loosely-wrapped headscarf, she was holding a tray with two still-steaming cups of deep amber-red tea and orange slices. Behind her, a cleaning bot was whirring steadily, its brushes and mops sopping up what must have been a nasty mess of both her and Junkrat’s blood trails, the floors spattered with red puddles and soapy bubbles.  
  
“I’m just going to come in, thank you,” Ana said, and there was no arguing with her as she walked in and deftly shut the door behind her. Her good eye roved over the other woman, seeing the swollen flesh near her eye and the crimson stain running down from where she was holding the ice pack to her head wound. Taking a low breath, she moved to carefully place the tea tray down on the edge of Mei’s desk. “You seem to be in need of some assistance. Have you called Dr. Ziegler or anyone yet?”  
  
Mei swallowed thickly, biting her lip as she took a guilty step back towards the comfort of her bed. “I was…I was going to? I was just about to. Call them, I mean.”  
  
“Are you not worried about that rather nasty-looking head wound, habibti? If you’d like, I can take a look-”  
  
“No! No, I mean…I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine. But I’m okay for now, the others need help more than I do…” She trailed off as she sat on the edge of her mattress, looking down at where a few errant dark spots now stained her snowflake blankets, lit up by the twinkling blue lights strung up around her bedframe. Snowball uttered a whining noise and and hovered over, its undercarriage opening to send another little blast of cold air towards the melting ice pack before huddling into her side. Mei patted it in a rather comforting way, still looking away from Ana’s questioning gaze. “There was an accident…”  
  
“Perhaps you’d like to talk about this accident, before we tend to what has happened to you?” The old medic offered out the cup of steaming tea and Mei took it with an unsteady hand.  
  
The aroma of anise and foreign spices wafted from the cup, very different from her own Chinese teas. Anise was supposed to be soothing, calming, comforting…but even though Mei made herself take a sip, she felt her gut recoil at the very presence of food or drink, so twisted from stress that it physically hurt. She tried to hide her reaction with a little cough, quickly returning it to its saucer and placing it aside. Ana waited patiently, taking a longer sip of her own tea.  
  
The hot liquid had at least cleared her throat a little, though her own voice still sounded small. “Jamie was supposed to be outside. I thought it was still him out there. He’s…He’s okay, isn’t he? Did you see him?”  
  
Ana nodded slightly over her drink. “Well, ‘fine’ is not often a word I would use with Fawkes. I saw him leave just a bit ago…covered in blood and in even worse condition than you, but still upright. But I know how anxious he gets about being offered help, even at the best of times. The boy seemed more agitated than ever so I thought perhaps I should approach you first on the matter…and it seems like you are involved in this as well.”  
  
Guilt swept through her. She should have called many precious minutes ago, right when she first got back. She should have swallowed her nerves and her anger and her terror at her closest companions being hurt and wrested from her and hating her…She should have done the right thing, been brave and simply done the right thing. And now Ana had had to come to her and her friends were finally going to get the help they needed and then probably abandon her, and it was really going to happen, and why did the right thing have to be such a hard thing to do? Despite all her wavering conviction on the matter, she was closer to crying than ever.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I was going to call, I was,” she said, her voice warbling once more. “Even though he kept asking me not to. But he’s really hurt, badly. Worse than me. And I kept trying to tell him that he needs help, but he just…he wouldn’t! He _wouldn’t_!”  
  
“Ah…” Ana said gently, and there was an understanding just in that one low exhaling tone. “I see.”  
  
Mei’s ice pack fell from her hands onto the bed, burying her face in both hands. Snowball flashed an alarm sign and huddled into her closer than ever, unable to help as Mei’s voice nearly dissolved into tears. “He’s going to hate me and then he’s going to leave…He promised he wouldn’t leave but…And then the others, they’re going to…and then…”  
  
Soft slippered feet approached her, and a very gentle hand placed its fingers on the side of her head, tilting it to the side. Ana’s lips thinned in disapproval, looking over the ripped-open gashes that spanned almost the entire side of the little scientist’s skull, dark with blood…and in one place, a small area of grey that might have been down to the bone. “Mei, whatever has happened, you know that everyone here will do their best to help you. This is more than your ice can heal…”  
  
“I know. I know, I’m sorry. Jamie says he didn’t mean it, that he wasn’t himself, but-”  
  
Ana tilted the girl’s head back a little more, examining the shape where the spiked knuckles had done their gruesome work. “Mm. So, this is Roadhog’s doing? And I believe I heard you mention Zarya?”  
  
Mei’s gut still felt like it had been physically wrenched up into her throat, clogging her words. She did manage a nod, wincing as a finger was felt too close to the ragged edges of her wound. “Mr. Roadhog is…I’m not sure, I think he was disassociating. Something was wrong, really wrong, and this wasn’t the first time. I don’t think he recognized me, or even Jamie. Zarya intervened, but then it turned out she knew this had been happening all along and just…didn’t _do anything_!” She huffed. “I think they’re still there, and I was supposed to be getting them help even if they don’t _want it_. And then Jamison’s going to leave when you make Roadhog leave, even after he _promised_ , and I thought Zarya-”  
  
“Breathe. Breathe, habibti.”  
  
Mei breathed out, and went to press the numbing ice back to her skull as the pounding in her head returned. “I’m sorry…It’s been a very long night, and I should have…done better.”  
  
“This is not the Overwatch we once knew. The junkers are not trained soldiers and Junkrat in particular is…volatile. I know that things have become more complicated than just standard military procedures, especially if ‘personal relationships’ are involved,” Ana said, smiling a bit at the pinkness that promptly spread on Mei’s cheeks. “Still, we cannot sit idly by, especially if it’s grown to the point where this-” She gestured to the headwound. “-is being inflicted by our very own. But I understand your trepidation…Goodness knows the nonsense I’ve dealt with with trying to keep Reinhardt in check, even these days. I think I might be able to help, as far as us dealing with foolish, headstrong men, hm?”  
  
Mei looked up with still-watery eyes, though there was a small spark of hope in them as well. “Do you think you can help them? Without them hating us and losing their trust?”  
  
“I cannot promise that. But I can at least try to see what is what, before we call in the others. For now, that is all I can do…Well, that, and at least get that head wound patched up a bit before we go find them. It should hold you a while before Dr. Ziegler can repair it properly.” Nodding fiercely, the old sniper tilted back the rest of her tea and headed for the door once more. “Let me go fetch a few things. You try to finish that tea and calm yourself a bit. We will handle this, Mei.”  
  
The door hissed shut behind her and Mei let out a very deep breath she’d been holding for…hours, it felt like. She lifted her teacup and made herself take another few sips, trying to keep her breathing steady. Maybe with Ana on her side, this could still all work out. The old sniper was more…understanding, than some of the more bureaucracy-minded and by-the-book agents, Winston and Angela and herself included. And even if Ana was in her 60s, she was one of the few people that could make even the junkers stand up straight and behave, lest they receive a disapproving look, or worse, a disappointed sigh.  
  
She soon heard a knock on her door once more, and Ana had returned half-dressed, with her biotic canisters, rifle, and even her tranquilizer launcher. She noticed Mei giving her a worried look, but merely offered a wrinkled smile. “Just in case the boys are still feeling rowdy. Now, let’s take a look at you again,” she said, before putting the weapons aside. Mei pulled away the red-smeared icepack once more, tilting her head as the older woman examined her once more. Frowning a bit, Ana took one of her canisters, popping the seal between her teeth and casting it aside. “Really meant for more triage situations. This will sting a bit, but it should hold you while we sort this out. One…two…”  
  
There was a dribble of liquid, a cooling sensation, and then the cooling ramped in the other direction until it became burning. Mei scrunched her eyes shut behind her glasses and tried her best not to make a sound as the burning grew stronger and stronger…until it finally started to abate, and the horrible throbbing wound in the side of her skull was numbed to little more than a threatening but far-away headache. That was a little better, and the relieved sigh she uttered said as much.  
  
“ _Xièxie nĭ_ , Ms. Amari. I can’t thank you enough.”  
  
“Of course. Now, I believe that there has been more than enough time lingering, we need to see to the others. I am guessing they are still at the junker compound?”  
  
“I think so? Although I don’t know if anything else might have happened by now…?”  
  
Ana shouldered her weapons once more, nodding Mei to follow her as she headed out the door. “Then let’s go before this nonsense gets any worse than it already is.”

* * *

  
  
“So…Who would like to start explaining first?”  
  
Mei lingered out in the darkness of the yard while Ana took the lead. Even if her head didn’t hurt as much as it did before, she still wasn’t sure how the others would react…especially with her bringing Amari literally right to their doorstep. The dimly lit interior at least allowed her a pretty good view, where Roadhog and Zarya were standing rather strangely close together and the latter looked silently terrified in that military way, knowing she had just run afoul of someone of far greater ranking than she was. Roadhog remained silent and inscrutable as ever.  
  
“C-Captain Amari, ma’am,” she heard Zarya say, “Er, we are currently dealing with an incident. We wished to be sure proceeding, before informing-”  
  
“Sergeant Zaryanova,” Ana interrupted rather sternly, “Are there wounded involved that need to be seen to, before we ‘proceed’?”  
  
“I believe Agent Roadhog and I are well enough. But Mei was in poor shape, and Junkrat even worse. I believe Mei retreated to her room, but Junkrat…” Zarya shifted nervously and looked to Roadhog for help.  
  
Roadhog said nothing, mask filters still grinding on every breath, enormous form heaving steadily as his lungs tried to keep up. He looked down at the spiked glove on one fist, their tips still stained dark. But still he was not forthcoming, merely slowly lowering his head.  
  
Ana was having none of it. “Roadhog. You need to tell me where Fawkes is. Now.”  
  
After a moment, he groaned out a low breath and answered. “…Gone.”  
  
“Gone?!” From outside, Mei came running. Even if running jarred her head and made it hurt again, even if it meant she had to face the pig-masked monstrosity who had done this to her, and face her best friend that had betrayed her to them. Only Ana’s suddenly outstretched arm stopped her, keeping her back. With wide eyes, she looked to the open entry where a splintered and broken door still hung in scraps, into the yawning darkness of Junkrat’s little room. “Gone?! No, he can’t be gone! Please, we have to-”  
  
Roadhog’s head lifted, seeming almost startled. Behind his lenses, his eyes slowly widened at seeing Mei. He couldn’t remember a thing except a blurred flash or two of pastel blue, and a very faint dreamstate of her screaming. But there she was, alive and whole…mostly, save where she was still half-covered in blood stains and with a chunk of her hair and the side of her head missing, torn away with his own fists.  
  
“…Mei.” He slowly lifted a hand and started to take a step forward. Both Ana and Zarya reacted, Ana pushing Mei back and Zarya taking a quick hold of his shoulder. To keep him away. Away from the innocent girl that he had almost killed.  
  
She was looking at him, with desperation and sadness and a panicked anger he had never seen on her, not even in the worst of times. Even with two people separating them and her being half his size, she seemed to stand against him, lifting both fists in anguish. “No! He can’t be gone!” She looked from him to the broken-in door again. “He’s not gone!”  
  
Realization dawned. She thought Junkrat was ‘gone’ in that room. She thought that Junkrat’s body was laying bloody and beaten just inside that doorway, a glassy-eyed corpse laying in the dark. She thought that he had killed him. And why wouldn’t she? He had come very close to it. For all anyone knew, even himself, Roadhog might have murdered the boy in cold blood and not even realized it. Of course she would think that. And she might not be wrong. What if he had…?  
  
Ana was saying something, but he couldn’t hear it. The ringing in his ears was returning, as he placed his face in one massive, blood-spattered hand, turning away from them all.  
  
Zarya placed herself between him and the other women, lifting both hands quickly as the situation only grew worse. “No, no! Mei, Captain Amari, I promise you, he is not ‘gone’ gone. He is fine…I mean, not fine. But he lives. He came back but it…it did not go well. He left again. But he is not dead…Mei, I promise you.”  
  
Mei’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses, and her gaze was still angry and hurt. There was venom in her eyes, speaking louder than words. ‘ _What are your promises worth? Liar._ ’ That’s what her eyes said. Even though she said nothing, and relaxed from her struggle to get past Ana, she merely gave Zarya a teary glare and then looked away.  
  
The Russian woman drooped visibly at her cold reception, brows furrowing and chagrin flickering over her face before she turned back to Ana. “Ma’am, I do not believe Agent Roadhog was in right mind when this happened. He is not dangerous now, we have been talking, spoken on the matter. Please, I will vouch for that. I will face my punishment, we both will, but he-”  
  
Silence fell promptly as Ana simply lifted one finger, and then pointed to the destruction all around them, and then to Mei’s bloody headwound, and then to the tooth on the floor. It was hard to argue with something like that, and Zarya’s gaze went downcast, simply folding her hands in front of her and stepping aside. The sniper stepped forward, her rifle not entirely lifted but still held ready in one arm as she faced Roadhog himself.  
  
“Rutledge,” she said, and saw how the enormous man paused. “May I ask why you have done this?”  
  
He lifted his pig-masked visage from out of his hand, turning his massive form to face her. He was still slow to answer, filters grinding for several wheezes more before he even tried. “…They weren’t them. Didn’t know who they were.”  
  
Ana waited.  
  
“Didn’t know who they were. Heard them…trying to get in. Had to stop them.”  
  
Mei hugged herself and turned away, and Roadhog was not entirely sure what to do. He stared into the wound on the side of her skull, and saw how she kept looking into the boy’s room, still trying to find him even though she knew he was not there. Should he apologize? Much like Junkrat, he did not really know how to apologize, not after such a long time when apologies simply did not matter. What use was it that he had not meant it? Junkrat had been right. He had done it.  
  
The old Captain was still looking at him expectantly, and he heaved a long, low sigh and went to slowly lower himself onto the creaking, half-busted old couch.  
  
“Tried to stop them. But she-” he upnodded to Zarya, “-stopped me. Was good. That she did. Good soldier.”  
  
“That remains to be seen,” Ana replied evenly. “There will be an investigation. A very necessary one.”  
  
“…Mm.”  
  
“For both you and Fawkes. And Zarya. And even Mei. You know this?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“We will first be taking all of you to hospitalization…and you, we will need to speak to separately. Let me contact Fawkes, and then we can start moving forward. Once you are all medically sound, I want to sit down with each of you. There seems to have been much chaos here tonight…but even if your team has fractured, we can still start to mend it here.” She pulled up her earpiece and tapped a number into the communicator. “Once Jamison gets here, we-”  
  
_Do you come from a land down undeeeer? Where women glow and men plundeeer? Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thundeeeeer?_  
  
From Junkrat’s room came the archaic sounds of his communicator’s ringing, and Ana blinked a bit before turning it off. “Well. That does not bode well.”  
  
Mei looked more fretful than before, clenching a hand to her chest. “What? Did he leave his comm here?”  
  
Roadhog rumbled another low sigh. “Yeah.”  
  
“This is not a good time to forget his comm!”  
  
The old junker shook his head. “Didn’t forget it. He left it. He left.”  
  
“You mean…he _left_? He left Overwatch for good? And…He left _all_ of us?”  
  
“Mm…”  
  
“When?”  
  
Ana was already typing into her communicator pad once more. “Athena, is Agent Junkrat still anywhere in the facility?”  
  
The device lit up a gentle blue as the computer system answered her, far too calm and soothing a voice for how Mei was feeling now. “No, Miss Amari. Agent Junkrat left Overwatch grounds approximately twelve minutes ago. He is outside the limitations of my tracking and does not seem to have a communicator on his person. He left from the southwest exit, and was last headed south on the main road, in the direction of the public air transports.”  
  
The old sniper cursed in her native tongue under her breath. “Athena, see if you can find any airway tickets made under his name or description. And see if anyone is awake right now, I know Jack is an early riser. We may be able to track him before he gets very far, but if he makes it to a main airway hub…”  
  
Mei leaned heavily on the wall, mind racing. Junkrat was brash even at the best of times, but this was entirely unexpected. When it had become clear that he would be willing to leave her if it meant going back home with his friend and bodyguard, it felt like she had taken an icicle through the chest. And that had hurt her even more than the spiked knuckles to her skull. So she had shut him out, before he could do anything more. She’d slammed the door in his face and left him before he could leave her. So that it would hurt less when he and Roadhog were forced out of Overwatch and back into the deserts they had come from.  
  
But something even worse had happened. While she lingered in her room, unable to do the responsible thing, the situation had gotten even worse and now he wasn’t even leaving with Roadhog. He had simply left them all, abandoning the whole thing and striking off on his own. This had spiraled completely out of control.  
  
Maybe he would go back to Junkertown, but there was still a bounty on his head and the other junkers would hunt him down like a dog if he returned without his standover man. She hoped that he wouldn’t be so foolish, but there was no telling what state of mind he was in. The best case scenario was that he had left but his conviction would waver and he would simply return after his panic was over. But this was no ordinary panic, and with Roadhog’s reactions even he seemed to think that he had left for good. It was entirely possible, probable even, that Junkrat himself had no idea where he was going. Letting instinct and anger lead him, there was an endless supply of bad places he might end up. And Ana was right, once he reached the main airports there was no telling where he…  
  
Mei’s eyes widened slightly behind her glasses and she looked up again. “Wait, Athena…You said he was headed south towards the airport, yes? He left to the south?”  
  
“Yes, Dr. Zhou.”  
  
She turned to Ana, grasping onto her arm. “I know where he’s going. If we leave now, we can still catch him.”  
  
“Very good, Mei,” Ana said with an approving nod, “Give me the coordinates and I can send Jack and a few others out to-”  
  
Both Roadhog and Mei interjected with a loud “No!” at the same time.  
  
She looked to him in surprise, but when he said nothing more, she took the lead once again. “Um. I meant…I’m sorry, Miss Amari, but sending the other agents won’t work. If he doesn’t trust them, it might make things even worse if they try to drag him back or he gets away. It has to be someone he knows. Maybe if Hana or Lucio-”  
  
“They are both away, en route to the Dorado mission,” Ana said, shaking her head.  
  
“Then…He trusts you. Maybe if _you_ go?”  
  
Again the old sniper denied her, gesturing to where Roadhog and Zarya still moped in front of her. “I cannot leave this current…situation. Nor can we send Roadhog out to collect him in this state, until we are more sure of things. And Zaryanova is not an option. So that leaves…” She trailed off, and everyone in the room looked to Mei expectantly.  
  
She quailed a bit. “Me? B-but you said I was involved in this too? I can’t leave. And Jamison is angry at me as well. There might be somebody else?”  
  
Roadhog shook his head. “He might come back with you. Just you.”  
  
Mei still looked unsure.  
  
“This is not entirely permitted by military rules, but seeing as we are no longer military, I hardly see much choice. And every moment, he gets further away,” Ana was typing into her communicator again, frowning. “Mei, as this is an emergency, I am granting you leave to go collect Fawkes and bring him back if you can. Once you’re both back, we’ll talk about proceedings, but first we need to make sure you are all safe. Even the ones that don’t think they need saving. Can we count on you?”  
  
Everyone was looking at her again. Everyone was so sure that she was the only one. Even Roadhog lifted his masked gaze again, watching her, unable to do it himself. She had to gather herself, no matter how angry and frustrated and sad she was. She had hesitated for too long, before, and it had gotten worse. She had to act. They seemed to be counting on her, and even if he wasn’t in his right mind…Junkrat was counting on her too. And this might be the only chance she had to get to him.  
  
She licked her lip, feeling the bloody split in the lower one with her tongue before she stammered a little  “I…I will try?”  
  
“Report to us at once if you find him, and hurry back. Good luck, habibti.”  
  
Ana stepped aside to let her past, and Mei nodded quickly and turned to go. But she paused when Zarya lifted her voice from her prior silence, holding out one hand.  
  
“Mei!” she said, and swallowed a bit when Mei turned and fixed her with that same wary look from before. But she continued on, “I know things are bad now, I know it, but…We will fix it. We will. I hope you will find Junkrat in time. I hope you find him.”  
  
Hearing her use the man’s actual name for once seemed to give Mei pause, but she recovered quickly. With another nod, she turned and headed out the door, vanishing out into the blue-gray light of what must have been the approaching dawn.  
  
Her footsteps faded, and Zarya returned to her spot beside Roadhog, placing one heavy hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her slowly, and the both turned to face the old sniper who was calmly picking up an overturned chair and setting it upright, primly seating herself upon it. Setting her weapons across her lap, she folded her hands as her single eye regarded them both. For several long moments she seemed to study them, before clearing her throat and smiling at them in that ‘no arguments’ kind of way.  
  
“Until they return, I believe that we have some time to talk. So…who would like some tea?"

* * *

  
  
Mei ignored the throbbing in her head, acting up every time she took too hard a step or too fast a pace. Headaches be damned, she couldn’t slow down now. Across the testing field and following the perimeter fences, she left by the west gates instead of the south. Once reaching the main roads, she headed north. The sun hadn’t yet begun to peek over the horizon, but the first rays of light were starting to cut through the darkness. The street lamps were still lit, but around her the sounds of traffic had just begun to start up as the early birds began their mornings.  
  
And here she was jogging along, hoping nobody really looked at her too closely and saw her frumpy pajamas, the top of it stained with red and a patched-but-still-fresh skull wound on full display. She must have looked a mad thing, but there was no time to really stop and worry. No time to stop at all, she needed to keep going until she found him.  
  
If she was right about this, he might still be stuck there at least until dawn was fully upon them and the lines were running again. If she was too slow, he might be gone by then. She sped up her pace, wincing but pushing through. Through the empty streets and the hush of the morning, she kept running.  
  
She had to get there first, before he left for good.


	9. 9

The top of the sun had barely just started to crest over the horizon by the time she got there. Out of breath, with her lungs burning and her head pounding, she hurried over the cracked pavement and under buzzing and crackling overhead lights, into the run down old bus station. Like most bus stations, it was an ancient and outdated affair, with a dreary cement building attached to an outdoor terminal. Hoverbuses had been a dwindling business for decades after flight had been made so common and affordable, and now only the poorest of the poor were reduced to ground-based travel over such long distances.  
  
At least that meant that even her frumpy and battered appearance wasn’t anything noteworthy in this place. Suffice to say it was a ‘rough’ crowd, even compared to what she was used to back at Overwatch…She was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one with blood on her, either. Despite the early morning hour, the bus station was already fairly crowded with people, although which were travelers and which were simply living at the station was impossible to tell. She had to hop over the outstretched legs of an old omnic that was down on his luck and surrounded by empty bottles, with two cardboard signs (one in English and one in Binary) asking for money and blessings.  
  
Technically, she wasn’t supposed to intrude into the outdoor area without buying a ticket, but it looked like nobody was heeding the rules about sleeping on the steps either, so she paid them no mind. Pushing through the crowd as politely as she was able, she bypassed the columns and chains and made a beeline for the actual buses. Nobody, not even the two security officers sharing donuts and coffee in a corner, paid her any notice at all.  
  
She saw no sign of anyone standing head and shoulders over anyone else with a fluffy head of blond hair, and there was no familiar click-clack of a metal peg leg. Nothing but the rumbling of the old bus engines, the hush of conversation from the patrons, and the occasional tinny announcements over the loudspeakers. Lifting onto her tiptoes, she desperately tried to find any trace of Junkrat. Nothing.  
  
“Excuse me! Sir, sir?” She hurried over to a nearby porter, who was loading luggage onto a cargo cart and merely fixed her with a dispassionate stare as she approached. She tried to smile anyway. “Sorry to bother you, but is there a bus leaving soon?”  
  
“There’s a lot of buses leaving soon. Morning schedule’s are over there.”  
  
“No, I’m sorry. What’s the very first bus to leave?”  
  
“You looking for the 2-94 for 6:15? Already missed it.”  
  
Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. “I-it’s gone?”  
  
The man shrugged and pointed. “Just about.”  
  
She turned to look in that direction, and saw that just beyond his pointing finger, the glowing red tail lights of one of the hoverbuses was already moving away from her. Down the line, it was starting to pull out into the station’s drive, out towards the main roads.  
  
Her heart leapt up again, but this time all the way up into her throat. Before she even knew what was happening, she was moving again. Physically pushing past the porter and not hearing his yelled protests, she staggered into an all-out run once more, even faster and more desperate than before. Pain exploded in her jostled brain and she barely felt it, eyes on those glowing taillights and how they were getting further away.  
  
“Jamison!” she screamed after it. “Jamie! JAMIE, COME BACK!”  
  
People were definitely looking at her now, at the small woman running at breakneck speed along the very edge of the sidewalk, pushing through the parting crowds, shoving her way through a gathering line, and leaping over an errant suitcase. She remained fixated on those lights, and luckily it slowed down as it neared the exit to the station. Even with her vision blurring a bit on the edges and her lungs hurting from her speed burst, she managed to start to catch up to it. She tried to glance up at the windows, maybe to see if there was a familiar face looking back at her, but there was no time, not when she had to stop the whole darn thing.  
  
Pounding a fist on the side of the bus as she ran, she stumbled alongside the moving vehicle until she came to the door. Swinging up next to it, she banged fretfully on the glass, red-faced and wild-eyed.  
  
“Wait! Stop the bus! Please stop!”  
  
Through the foggy panes, she saw the unimpressed glare of the woman driving the bus. Whoever she was, she did not seem impressed by Mei’s antics whatsoever. She didn’t even react, just gave her a roll of the eyes and ignored her just as she had ignored the hundreds of others who had been late for the bus over the years. Pulling up to pause just before she turned out into the roaring traffic nearby, the driver cast another glance to the door to make sure the crazy Asian lady was gone.  
  
Which she seemed to be, so she pulled the bus forward and started to hit the accelerator…  
  
The whole bus jolted strangely a moment later, when her foot leapt from the accelerator to the brakes, the force of the stop sending the back half of the bus slightly up into the air. If it had still had tires, they surely would have been screeching to a halt.  
  
Mei stood in front of the vehicle’s path in the road, both arms spread, with her hair in her face, her glasses hanging crooked on her ears, and her head turned to the side as if expecting to be struck. She cringed and clenched both eyes shut, afraid to even look. The bus’s brakes roared just in front of her, the grill hovering barely a foot away. From further down the station and inside the bus itself, there was faint shouting.  
  
But it had stopped.  
  
She peeked open one eye slowly, shoulders slumping a bit in clear relief. The shouting back at the station was growing louder now, and around the corner of the bus’s grills she could see the security guards headed in her direction. The relief in her was short lived, but she stood her ground, lifting her arms once more as she blocked the only way out.  
  
“Wait! Please just stop, I can explain-!”  
  
Curious faces were starting to press to the windows inside the vehicle, along with hushed muttering and grumbling and even a bit of laughter at their predicament. Near the very back, a tall and lanky figure dressed in a ragged gray hoodie looked up from where he had been slumped in his seat, one arm wrapped protectively around his single bag. Opening a pair of vivid yellow eyes, he growled and stumbled upright, peg leg clacking on the slatted metal floors as he pushed up to the front.  
  
“Hey! Why aren’t we movin’ this hunk of junk already!”  
  
The bus driver snorted irritably. “Crazy lady jumped in the road.”  
  
“Bloody hell, then just run ‘em over, let’s get going! Come on, come on!”  
  
“Law don’t permit it. Security’ll get her.”  
  
“Fockin’ hell, who’s stupid enough to-” Scowling, he joined the driver up by the very front window, peering out and watching the blue uniform of the guard who rushed past, to the little Chinese woman in the stained pajamas who was…”-hold up…the….Wait a tick, is that-?…Oh, _fuck me_! Open the door! Open the goddamn door!”  
  
The driver shrugged and opened the doors, and Junkrat shoved his pack onto his back and skipped the steps altogether, leaping past them and onto the pavement with a clatter of mechanical parts. Pivoting on his peg leg like a ballerina, he turned and saw that the man in the blue security uniform had already set upon her. Mei was cringing back, crying something aloud that he couldn’t hear through the ringing, as the guard put his filthy hands on both her arms and started trying to drag her with him. Rage flooded through him, gasoline in his veins as flames lit up behind his eyesockets and he lunged after them.  
  
Both hands curled into claws as they landed upon the officer and all but ripped him off her, physically lifting the man into the air and throwing him further into the road. The security man rounded on them both again…and found himself faced with nearly seven feet of enraged Australian junker, stretching up to his full height and his eyes glowing wildly in the shadow of his hoodie as he put himself between them.  
  
“Yeah, nah! Try it! Fuckin’ try it! I’ll bloody go ya, mate!”  
  
The guard opted out and backed down and sidled away back towards safety, both hands lifted. Junkrat turned on Mei next, wrapped both lanky arms around her, and lifted her as well, hauling her in wild steps out of the path of the bus and depositing her back on the sidewalk. Just behind him, with barely inches to spare and so close that he could almost feel the metal sides of the vehicle shaving his back, the bus driver hit the pedal and peeled out out onto the main road. Clearly, she paid no mind to the human drama playing out before her, but such was the case with most bus drivers, anywhere he had known.  
  
He stood there for a moment, watching his escape grow further away, then slowly looked down to where he was nearly suffocating Mei in his embrace, her face pressed against his hoodie and his arms still locked around her in a near-death grip. Releasing her just enough that she could scrape in a breath, he grabbed onto her shoulders instead, leaning down to her much shorter height. “Mei! What the shit? What the shit?”  
  
She was trembling wildly and didn’t answer him. With a low and frustrated growl, he stood and promptly buried her face back into his hoodie and wrapped her back up in both arms as he loomed over her, sending a vicious glare in the direction of the security guards that were gathering further up the line. Eyes darting, his metal fingers pressed covetously to the back of her head, stroking her bloody hair and daring anyone to get any closer. Still, he questioned her. “Really though, darl, what the _shit_ was that? How’d ya even?”  
  
Her voice was muffled against his ribs. “I found you. I remembered one of your stories.”  
  
“Eh?”  
  
She looked up at him, one eye peeking above her crooked glasses. “You told me a story one time about how you escaped the police by letting yourself be seen heading towards an airport so they would be busy setting up a sting operation there…but you said that you doubled back and took a bus to a different inland airport and got away.”  
  
“I did?”  
  
She nodded up at him.  
  
“…Ya remembered that? Ya listened to me?”  
  
“Of course I listened to you. I mean…Not everything, sometimes you talk a lot. But I listen to a lot of it. I remember a lot of your stories-”  
  
She found her head being pressed back against him, his arms tightening in another overzealous embrace as he clutched onto her, rocked back and forth in his grasp. He looked strangely conflicted, teeth gritting and still glaring daggers at the wary security guards and the little crowd nearby. “Ya gave me a bloody coronary, there. Damned fool thing, that. Jumpin’ in front of a bus. And they say I’m the mad one?”  
  
“I had to stop you! Nobody was listening to me so I just…I didn’t know what else to do. I just had to stop the bus and get you.”  
  
Slowly, his arms disentangled from around her, and he let her drop back to the ground where he had been holding her on the tips of her toes. Lifting himself away from her, he ignored the way she tried to keep her hold on him, wrapped around his skinny waist. With a snort, he even went to push her away a bit. “Well!…Waste of time for both of us then, wasn’t it? You’re safe now, so you can fuck off back to your little pals in Overwatch. And me? I’ve scarpered, I’ve fucked off too. Everyone’s happy. Now piss off!”  
  
That one stung a bit, but she had just narrowly missed being hit by a bus to get to him, and she wasn’t about to let go now. Even when he was physically trying to pry her off. “No!”  
  
“The fuck is all this? You tell me to go away, I go away. Now you’re here throwing yourself at cars to catch me?…Wait a sec.” His eyes narrowed. “They sent you to hold me up for a bit, eh? Cavalry’s right behind you, going to take me down while I’m unawares? I’m onto you lot, now! Gettoff!”  
  
“No! Nobody’s here to catch you except me. And the others are just worried about you, we all are.”  
  
“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on!”  
  
“…What?”  
  
He groaned dramatically, throwing his head back. “Nothing! Bloody hell, woman, I did the last n’ final thing you ask me to do. I left. Now you’re gonna be mad at me for that too?”  
  
“I didn’t want you to _leave_!” she protested, “I just…I wanted you to leave me _alone_ for a bit! That’s all. After what happened. I was mad, and scared, and sad, and hurt, and…and I still am. But I never wanted you to leave. That’s part of the reason I was so mad at you first, was because you were going to leave with Mr. Roadhog-”  
  
Junkrat snarled above her. “Fuck Roadhog! Yeah, ya heard right. Fuck him. I give up everything, _everything_ , even gave up my girl and my own teeth, to keep his fat arse safe from them reprogramming his brain, and what’s he do? He goes and seduces your big Russian pal the second I turn my back! Fuckin’ thankless, that is.”  
  
Mei scowled at him right back. “Do you even understand why I’m mad at you, Jamison?! You just admitted that you let me get hurt and you’re willing to leave me after you promised you wouldn’t! You didn’t even tell me about him doing this! After everything we went through together?”  
  
“That’s not fair! It’s not like th-”  
  
“You just said it, five seconds ago! You gave up everything for Mr. Roadhog to…” She blinked. “Wait, him and Zarya? Really?”  
  
“Right? I mean, who woulda thunk it? I walked right in on ‘em all cuddly kissy-like.”  
  
“Nooo…Are you sure?”  
  
“I’m positive! That’s my point. You can’t fuckin’ trust anyone these days, not even your own best mate who beats the shite out of you, or your girl who’s gonna give you up to the authorities…” He narrowed his eyes down at her in an accusatory way that she did not like at all.  
  
“You know who the ‘authorities’ are, Jamison?” she snapped, “It’s Ana. She came knocking on my door because she was worried about you. She’s with Roadhog and Zarya now to make sure they’re not hurt. She wants to make sure you’re not hurt either.”  
  
He did falter a bit at that, bushy eyebrows slacking from their angry furrowing. “Yeah, well…Bit late for that, ain’t it? Now nan’s a good sort, but she’s real no-nonsense. Oil n’ water, that’s me and Overwatch. Should’ve known this whole ‘going legit’ thing was going to end just as bad as all the other times.”  
  
She couldn’t help herself. “Well, maybe if you’d stop sabotaging yourself it could actually work! Maybe if you actually let me help _fix it_!”  
  
The crowd that was still lingering nearby seemed confused. What was supposed to be a heartfelt reunion between two apparent lovers was dissolving into another fight, right before their very eyes. A few murmurs swept through them. Even the security guards looked quite taken aback at this dramatic turn of events.  
  
Junkrat bared his teeth once more, though its fierce effect was slightly lessened by the gap on one side. He stretched upright and bristled with fury and somehow seemed even taller and bigger than before. “Oh! Ooooh there it is! _There_ it bloody is! Just gonna fix me, is that it? Always the fixing!”  
  
“That’s not what I said!”  
  
“Well it’s what you meant, isn’t it? I told you, I know I’m mental, I know my kettle’s utterly boiled dry. Ya don’t always get me, I know. But you can’t just…I ain’t some headcase project for you to fix up, like then I’ll be right as rain, and then I’ll be what you want! But you think I keep messin’ it up, and you’re frustrated because I’m not where you think I should be! I know what’s behind all those little looks you give me when it goes bad. Wishin’ you could reprogram my brain, how I am. Tell me that’s wrong, Mei! Look right at me and say it’s not truth!” He fixed her with his wild stare, pupils tiny specks of black against blazing yellow, waiting for her to speak.  
  
Mei looked back at him, setting her jaw stubbornly. Her face twitched a bit, mouth opening a few times as if she was trying to put her thoughts in order. To explain to him how he was wrong, how that wasn’t it at all. How she wasn’t frustrated that they kept getting into trouble, because he wasn’t doing what he should have, and she wasn’t helping him right, and he was supposed to be doing…doing _better_ , than this! Just getting her thoughts in order, to tell him he was wrong _yet again_.  
  
But the words wouldn’t come.  
  
“Yeah…Yeah, thought that was it.” There was something simmering under his voice, past the anger. Something just as sad and frustrated as she was, even if not for the same reasons.  
  
“That’s not what I meant. If you’d just let me explain!”  
  
“How about I shut the door on you while you’re trying to explain? Ain’t that what we’re doing nowadays?”  
  
“That’s not fair-”  
  
“Ain’t it?”  
  
The two looked at each other. Anger and resentment still roiled inside her, and clearly in him. They’d been at odds before. From the very time they had met, they had clashed and butted heads and had been at odds like their two conflicting elements belied. He burned and consumed and destroyed, but rose to build new and different things from the ashes. She froze and fixed and preserved, but much of her efforts ended in mourning and atrophy. There were times when they complimented each other so well that one could no longer imagine being without the other, but then there were times when their differences seemed insurmountable.  
  
She finally let go of him, tightening her fists by her sides and looking away. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go.”  
  
“H’yeah, well, when is that the case for either of us? Nothing ever works out.” he said bitterly.  
  
The crowd by the bus station very quietly dispersed off into different directions. Even the security officers kept well clear, leaving the two alone to their misery together.  
  
Junkrat watched the crowd go, though his eyes darted down a moment later when he heard her sniffle loudly, wiping at her cheek with the back of her bruised hand. She was crying again, and it always hurt him to see her cry like that. He even groaned a little, rubbing uneasily at his bruised face. “Now, darl…I mean, Mei…”  
  
“Can’t we just…Can’t we keep trying, though?” she asked quietly, rubbing more tears away and not looking at him. “I know we’re mad at each other. I’m sorry that I’m mad, but I am. I’m really mad at you. And I know you’re mad at me.”  
  
“Nnngh…”  
  
Another sniffle, even though he could tell she was trying to keep her voice even. “But I don’t want you to leave. I never wanted you to leave…me.”  
  
His eyes rolled skyward, expression pained. Damn those tears of hers, they could wear down his defenses like nothing else in the world. “Then…There’s a bus comin’ up in a few minutes. You can come with. We can talk it over or whatever. You can come with me. We’ll head off, darl, you and me. Maybe back to Oz. Find us a place just for us! Out somewhere where nobody can ever bother us. Or uh…Maybe to China somewheres? Yeah, China’s real big! We can get a place there, too. Get us some chooks and grow beans or something? Maybe get some pigs, Roadie always had a thing for…I mean! No! Fuck Roadie, and the Russian, and everyone else! I don’t need any sort of pig around at all! We don’t need ‘em!”  
  
This time, she just let him ramble on, and did not interrupt. So he kept going.  
  
“I’m real good at buildin’, so I can build us a place. Or we can just take one! Finders keepers, eh? And then we’ll just live as we please, just the two of us, after we’ve made up. You an’ me! I mean, maybe we could invite Hana and Lucio around sometimes? Never did beat Hana at skeeball, but I’m near to it. And Lucio’s a good’un, almost too good. I guess maybe if Nan’s real concerned, she can pop in for tea on occasion. And the big German what yells all the time! Now he’s a great big example of something or other! Bet he’d make a great new bodyguard. I’ll hire him on, take lots of pictures of us together and then rub them in Roadie’s fat, stupid face!”  
  
She rubbed at her arm with a little nod. “You’re really mad at Mr. Roadhog too, aren’t you? A lot?”  
  
“Tuh, like that’s not obvious. He messed it all up. It was fine when it was just us. Could handle those times when he didn’t know what was what or who I was. I know he don’t mean it. But he…” He trailed off, looking conflicted again. “He hurt ya real bad, Mei.”  
  
“He hurt you too.”  
  
“Yeah, well. All the more reason for us to just fuck off, then.”  
  
Which was true enough. Every couple of months, he had to scramble for his life, away from the man who was supposed to protect his life. He’d gotten good at it, keeping low and out of sight, and even he knew to be quiet when Roadhog was on the warpath. He’d gotten used to it, even. Really, what was one more source of bruises or broken bones to someone like him? But hurting Mei…? Unthinkable. Possibly unforgivable.  
  
His mind was already whirring with alternatives. This time, it wouldn’t technically be abducting Mei if she just went with him. They could go on the lam together, a sort of Bonnie and Clyde vibe…just without robbing banks or breaking the law, and always wearing seatbelts and looking both ways when they crossed the street. They could flip the bird to the rest of the world and to Overwatch, except for his friends and the ones he liked, of course. And then they would…Well, he wasn’t entirely sure what they would do. And with the sad look, she was still giving him, his plans were dying before they could even be fully imagined, rotting on the vine.  
  
“But…you won’t fuck off, will you? Not with me?”  
  
“…I can’t. I can’t just leave everyone, or my work, or everything here. And I don’t want to leave you. No matter how mad I am. I don’t want you to go. Nobody wants you to go. Before I left, Ana and Mr. Roadhog and even Zarya said they hoped I could get here in time to bring you back.” She tilted her head up at him, cheeks still wet and glasses a little smeared with moisture. “I’m not the only one who would miss you.”  
  
“Heh. Roadhog, missin’ me? That’s a good one, mate. He sure wasn’t missin’ me with his fists, was he?”  
  
“I’m…not really happy with him either, at the moment. It’s like you said. He didn’t know where he was, or what was happening. And he didn’t mean it, I don’t think. But that’s not something you deal with by just letting it happen, or by trying to hide it. Ana and the others can help him better than we can, Jamie,” she said. Very, very cautiously, she reached up towards him again with one hand, half expecting it to be slapped away or for him to jerk back. And for half a moment, he looked like he might do just that. But then his brows relaxed when the tips of her fingers touched his cheek, sliding them across the bruised and swollen skin by his black eye. “I’m not saying you should just forgive him, like you’ve been doing. But just leaving him behind won’t help him either. We don’t leave each other behind, remember?”  
  
His brows knitted again, but he leaned down into her touch. “Ya shut me out, love. I was tryin’ to explain to you. I was. But the words didn’t come out right and you just kept saying I wouldn’t understand, I wasn’t understanding. D’ya know how shit that is, when I’m tryin’? Shutting the door in my face and yelling for me to go away, then yelling at me for going away?”  
  
She sighed. “I’m sorry for that. I was scared and hurt and frustrated and…Everything was a mess. It’s all a big complicated mess. Maybe we shouldn’t talk everything over just standing here at the bus stop? I think we might be in trouble with the guards already. We can go home and start working through things there, though? Will you come back with me? ….Please?”  
  
Mei reached for him again, tentatively and clearly still wary. Her hand slid from his cheek, down his frumpy hoodie and down to his ribs. Joined by her other arm, she tried to hug him. It was always a slightly comical sight, her being so much shorter than him and left trying to embrace his beanpole frame when she couldn’t even reach his shoulders. And at first, it simply didn’t work. He didn’t embrace her back for a time, and she was left clutching uselessly onto his looming form. Her heart fairly shriveled inside her chest, and she started to draw back and apologize.  
  
But then he bent his long and lanky spine, and his arms opened and hesitantly circled around her. That serpent-like grasp coiled around her, drawing her in and wrapping her up. She was lifted up to the tops of her toes, and she felt his fingers splay out across her back, metal and flesh pressing her in against him. For a moment it seemed like he wanted to kiss her, moving his bruised face to the side until his lips touched her hair. But he did not move any further from there, and she did not move to meet his lips.  
  
So they just held onto one another, until she was warmed up and he had cooled down. And finally, with a shuddering sigh, he released her. His hoodie had rumpled and gone astray, and his hood had fallen off so that his wild blond tufts of hair were sticking out all over. And he was still as messy and spattered with blood as she was. To the outsiders watching, they probably looked utterly deranged. And maybe, in a sense, they were, if they both seemed willing to try again.  
  
But that was one thing they had in common, no matter how they disagreed. They kept going and they tried again.  
  
“Yeah…Arright, Snowflake. Arright. Only for you, though!”  
  
“Thank you. I mean it.”  
  
Junkrat ran his tongue around the gap of his missing tooth, hesitating. “…Am I in trouble, d’you think?”  
  
“Maybe a little bit. But just for keeping it a secret. But this isn’t like military Overwatch. They’re not going to kick you out, they’re going to try and help you out. Because you’re one of us,” she nodded up at him, “They’ll want to see you in the med ward first, to help with the swelling and put your tooth back in. I’ll be in for this nasty thing on the side of my head. And…all four of us are going to get a scolding from Ana, so be ready for that.”  
  
He groaned aloud. “Oh hell, she’s going to do that thing where she sighs and folds her arms and gives you the look.”  
  
“Pharah survived it. Maybe we will too? So…Will you come with me? Can we go home, please?”  
  
With a groan, he shouldered his pack and cast one last look around the decrepit bus station. “What if I just lived here from now on?”  
  
“I think it might be too gross here even for you,” she said with a little faint smile, with one last sniffle and a wipe at her eyes, pulling off her glasses and wiping them on the edge of her sweatshirt. “I’m a little scared of whatever that smell was, on the front steps?”  
  
“Gotta be honest, darl, I’m not smelling much right now asides a kinda copper blood odeur and what I really hope is lemon?”  
  
Her smile shifted into a frown of concern, taking his hand and tugging him towards the exit. “Okay, we’re taking you to the med bay right away. Come on.”  
  
Looking down at where she was pulling at him, he let his mechanical fingers tighten around her much smaller ones, as the much tinier woman started to lead him away. As they neared the exit, the security guard he had roughed up earlier shot him a dirty look. With a crooked, swollen sneer, Junkrat launched out one arm, swinging at him. The errant guard cringed away, then blinked when he realized that he had not been struck and he was now missing the donut he had been holding. The massive junker was now loping away from him, munching on the sticky iced treat while his tiny traffic-jumping companion seemed none the wiser.  
  
Grumbling and turning back to his coffee, he decided to let it go. There had already been more than enough drama with those two for today.


	10. 10

It had been almost a week, now. Ana and Zarya had ‘escorted’ him to one of the smaller and less-used clinics on the base, little more than a triage station for when this place had been bustling with agents. Now it was dusty and lonely inside, with a few beds and some decrepit equipment locked away. Perfect for someone like him. Ana had stayed there with him, letting him know when Mei had returned with Junkrat in tow, and the two were being tended to by Dr. Ziegler. Zarya had been sent off to be dealt with by a rather irked-looking 76, much to her chagrin…and after that, it had been surprisingly quiet.

As far as jails went, this one ranked up near the top of the ones he had been confined to. He watched television, read, and helped Ana with her knitting when she dropped by. Without Junkrat’s incessant chatter, it was almost like a vacation. It was rather nice. Although after another day or two of sitting in the clinic and finishing his books and eating his meals alone and listening to the drone of daytime TV, he started to become tired of things. Luckily, that was when he had been let out of the clinic and accompanied to some of the meeting areas in the main base, and sat down in an office where he was required to meet with some other headcase doctor to evaluate him.

Roadhog had broken two chairs, so they had had to bring in a sofa for him. He’d broken that too. But he didn’t tell them that, just sitting atop the cushions and broken wooden slats, slightly sunk into the furniture. He hadn’t been sure what to expect, when they had assigned Dr. White to come in and visit him. He was fairly sure that Dr. White wasn’t her real name, although that’s what Dr. Ziegler had said to call her. She had been a colleague of hers from a different time and came highly recommended. He had expected someone a little like Dr. Ziegler herself; kind but clinical, wearing white coats, the kind of ‘therapist’ who sat across the room with a little clipboard and wrote down all their little judgments on his behavior.

Instead, Dr. White had what he was pretty sure was an Iranian accent, was a rather portly older woman with frizzy hair who dressed in loose blouses and shawls and hoop skirts, wore a necklace that was probably some sort of healing crystal, and had told him about her twelve cats. Hog thought that twelve cats was far too many cats for anyone to have, but had said nothing. Instead, she had laughed and said that she already knew that twelve cats was too many, but she loved them all, even the mean ones, too much to ever give them up.

After a few sessions with her, and puzzling why they had entrusted something like a supposed PTSD case to such a loon, he began to get a notion of why they had chosen her. As bonkers as she was, she could talk to him. And she could get him to talk. She was more like an Ana than a Dr. Ziegler, and would patiently wait on his answers but still expect those answers to be given. And she meant it. Their first session, he had tried to stonewall her and remain silent for almost everything at first, and their session had lasted for over four hours until she got what she felt she needed to get started.

Stranger still, she never asked him about his past in detail. Never asked about his mask or his refusal to show his face. Maybe she had read Overwatch’s files on him, whatever they had, or perhaps she had been warned not to broach the subject. She didn’t ask about the Omnium, or his wife and his daughter, or any of his many victims. Instead she asked about what it was that he saw when he woke up in the dark. What kinds of sounds he heard, what kinds of things he thought they said? What did he plan to do to them? Kill them or just hurt them? Did he think that they deserved to be hurt or killed? Were they faces of anyone he knew, or just unknown blurs?

She also asked about Junkrat. What was their relationship like? How long had they been traveling together? When Hog got angry at him, what did he do to relieve that anger? Did Junkrat and him share chores? What was Junkrat’s favorite food and did they eat together often? And what about Mei? How was the relationship between the three of them? Who was Zarya and how was their relationship after fighting one another?

Over the days, the questions kept coming. Sometimes he answered them. Other times he didn’t. But he always thought about them. Sometimes he even told Dr. White things that she didn’t ask about. How Junkrat was afraid of shrimp, or how sometimes he cried in his sleep but never when he was awake, or how Junkrat lied so much that he couldn’t even believe himself anymore. Sometimes he tried just telling Dr. White what he thought she wanted to hear, and she would just nod and continue, even though she seemed to know he was lying too. And she never wrote anything down.

She was sitting across from him now, in a borrowed office chair, one leg crossed over the other and smiling that rather batty smile. Hog sat on his broken couch, enormous hands folded in his lap.

“So, Roadhog,” she said, using his new name after he had told her that he preferred it. “You know the drill. How are you feeling? Anything giving you trouble?”

“No.”

“Anything you want to ask?”

“…How is Pookie?”

She laughed. “Pookie is fine. I didn’t even need to take her to the vet after all, do you know what it was? A hairball. A giant, horrible hairball. I found it on the floor yesterday morning and there she was, eating out of her bowl two feet away like it was nothing.”

“…Heh. Good.”

“I’m quite relieved, yes. So, I know I cleared you to be able to return to your room and you’ll soon be cleared for active missions for now, so long as you continue attending our sessions. How did everything go?”

He thought for a long while, and she let him. Finally he said, “I saw Mei. In a hallway.”

“How was she?”

“She was scared. At first. She did most of the talking, left quickly. But said she was glad to hear I’m still here…” He trailed off again before adding. “-She has a little scar.”

“Did you tell her that you were sorry?”

“…No.”

He expected chagrin, but she just nodded and asked, “But you noticed the scar? You looked for it, the one you gave her?”

“Yeah.”

“What about Junkrat, has he been in his room in your garage?”

“No. All his stuff is gone…No. He left some trash for me to clean up,” Hog sighed. “But he’s gone. Ana said he’s been sleeping on his sofa in his lab.”

“Have you thought about what you might say once you see him again?”

“…No.”

That wasn’t entirely true. After he had been released from the medical ward, he had tried to find Junkrat, but had only found a torn-apart room and piles of garbage where the younger scavenger had made off with what was his…and a few things that weren’t his, too. Even after he had found out his employer was staying in his lab, he didn’t go there. Instead he meandered around the base, trying to ‘run into him’. But Junkrat was slippery, always had been. Every time Hog thought he finally saw him, he was already gone again, and made it clear that he did not want to be ‘run into’ at all.

Dr. White sat with him for a while longer, asking questions and filling the void when he remained quiet. This time she asked him about his feelings on some of their missions and if he was ever ‘back’ in those places. He denied that part, but didn’t tell her that he was always back in the same place. Always waking up back beneath that burnt-out farmhouse, listening for the vermin that were here to take his things or disturb the tomb above him. That every time he would get up and go to…dispose of them, the way vermin should be disposed of.

But often times, he caught the wrong kind of rat.

* * *

 

Dr. White had noticed that he liked patches, so she had bought him a (honestly, rather poorly done) patch of a smiling white kitty cat that looked like one of her own. Hog liked pigs more than cats, but he decided to put it on anyway, although maybe off to the side of the others. And although he normally wasn’t as fond of ‘talkers’, he certainly seemed to keep in company with a lot of them. Dr. White was definitely a talker, and it had been well over an hour with her talking, and he left the little room feeling a little worn down.

Outside, in the hallway, Zarya was sitting in a chair with her legs crossed and her eyes closed. Upon hearing the massive junker approach, she opened one eye and then the other, looking up at him. “Hey.”

He rumbled a greeting and looked back as the door opened and shut again, Dr. White rushing past them in a rustle of skirts and shawls and cat hair, wishing them both a good afternoon.

Zarya snorted a little chuckle and looked amused. “Ah, they give you the cat lady? Dr. White?”

“…She’s all right.”

“She is not what I expected…More like crazy aunt than doctor, da? A little too…ugh, what is word? Sensitive? Feely? Always with the ‘Zarya, it is okay to cry. You are safe. Zarya, you are in a place where you can cry’…”

Hog tilted his head to look at her through one lens. “Did you cry?”

Those green eyes shot him a nasty little look and she didn’t answer, which was fine. He hadn’t been answering some questions lately, either, just more than he’d expected.

So he shrugged and stepped aside as if expecting her to get up and try to squeeze past him. “Here for an appointment?”

“Actually, no,” she said, patting both hands impatiently on her knees. “I was waiting out here for you.”

“Mm?”

“I do not know about you, Mako Rutledge, but I get itchy with all their questioning and prodding and baaah!” She waved a hand impatiently, nails newly painted pink where before they had been chipped from their fight earlier. “And they say you have been in that clinic for days. You must be tired of watching bad tv by now. I was thinking, you come train with me? I will spot you for the weights, I want to see what you can do.”

He turned his head the other way. “With me?”

“Da. Now you are thinking, ‘But Aleksandra, it was not a good time, what happened. And then the kissing, it was bad, and awkward and…not right…’ Er, that is what you are thinking?” She rubbed one arm uneasily, looking down. “And you are right, it was. But I do not want to leave it there, us being bad and awkward together. So I am thinking…we pick it up, we move on with it?”

“Mm?”

“I am not the right person to talk to about what happens when you forget where you are. But I…know a little about it. And I know that I am not very good at listening, sometimes, but if you wish to talk, I will try to listen. If that is what you want.”

“Mm.”

“Because we are strong, Mako Rutledge, we should be strong enough to move on. For now, I thought…maybe we will work out together? Maybe we can talk, even though you do not talk so much. And I will not…” She looked a little sheepish again. “I will not shame myself with my actions again. It will just be lifting weights and talking. I just wish to know you more, without us both being covered in blood or fighting, da? Er, you do not have to say yes to me. But we can try to start again?”

He lowered his gaze behind his mask, thinking. But he did not have to think long. Maybe he really was tired of being trapped in the clinic and watching shitty daytime tv. Maybe he could use a workout. Or, maybe he wanted to specifically workout with her in particular.

It was like she said. It had gotten awkward and he hadn’t been ready for such things. Not with his mind in shambles and ghosts in the corners of his vision. But perhaps if he was focused on the weights and her simple company, it would be better. He liked her, and even if they were fighting their own battles, it had been too long since he’d felt companionship with anyone else…Anyone else except Junkrat, anyway, and the boy was still nowhere to be found. But she was here, and asking him to try again with her.

Cutting through the bullshit, that’s what he liked about Zarya. She asked him a simple question, and he would answer.

“Yeah.”

Her expression brightened, and she stood from her chair, cocking both arms to her hips. “Yes, good! That makes me happy! You are a very interesting one. I will tell Athena to clear the gym for us. Very exciting, we will get out the heaviest sets. I am challenging the great Mako Rutledge again, I can bench more than him. I bet that-” She blinked, clamping her mouth shut quickly. “Er…Sorry, no bets this time. Heh, just a friendly challenge, I assure you.”

He smirked, grinding in a loud breath through the mask filters. “...Overconfident. You’re on.”

She smiled at him, in a genuine way. “I am glad.”

“Mm.”

“Hah! Yes! I am glad! Let me take care of a few things and change. I well see you in the gym in…how about an hour? The Frog Man has a new album to put on, very good for these things. I have a new outfit, you will enjoy its color, just as I do! I will also bring protein drinks! Time to work up a sweat, this will be very good training!”

Hog groaned a bit under his breath, watching her flex and pose as if forgetting she was even in front of him. It seemed Zaryanova’s enthusiasm had overridden any awkwardness between them, and he couldn’t help but be glad of it. He might be thinking differently in an hour, of course, if she was yelling at him to do leg lifts or carry medicine balls or whatever the hell. Crazy woman.

He liked her.

With a nod, he lifted a hand in farewell. “Yeah. See you in an hour.”

Bidding farewell to his new Russian exercise comrade, he started off back towards his room, but paused and headed off down a different hall when he felt an urgent calling deep in his gut. He’d been in that office for a few hours and was past due for a piss. Ducking into the men’s room, he hiked his mask up to rest atop his head, fumbling with the zipper to his trousers.

He heard the door open behind him, but paid it little mind. They would leave. They always left, when they saw him inside. So he merely waited for them to exit and for the door to slam shut again. Because nobody had ever been stupid enough to interrupt Hog when he was tending to his hog.

“Oi!”

Or, there was _one_ person…

Very slowly, he turned his head just enough to see Junkrat standing in the doorway, hands on his hips and jaw jutting forward in a rather ugly scowl. Bushy brows lowered and yellow eyes narrowed, and the younger junker stared him down.

“Welly welly well well, if ain’t me _best mate_ ,” he said, voice dripping with an uncustomary sarcasm. “Guess they finally let you loose in the paddock, eh? Well, you got a bone to pick with yours truly. You n’ I gotta have a discussion, we do!”

Hog glanced down at himself, around at the tiny bathroom, then back to Junkrat in a rather disgruntled manner. “…Right now?”

“Of course right now! What kind of stupid arse question is that? You got a better bloody time to do it?”

Hog sighed and zipped up his pants. Rounding to face his once-employer, he found Rat staring at him in a very expectant way. He waited- waited for the barrage of insults and demands and words that was sure to come spewing forth. But for once, they didn’t. Rat was just staring. And for one of the very first times that he could remember, Hog felt suddenly unnerved by the silence. Rat was supposed to be talking. Rat was always the one talking.

Junkrat tilted his wild head one way, then the other. Eventually his impatience got the better of him, but even then he gestured at Hog as if demanding him to speak instead. “Well?!”

“…Well?” Hog replied.

That was the wrong answer. Rat’s balled fist landed squarely against his gut, wobbling through the layers of fat and muscle beneath. Stupid kid had never figured out that gut punches didn’t work on someone like Hog. Probably something he’d picked up in the back alleys of Junkertown, aimed to wind his opponents while he made a quick escape. The first punch had no real effect, and neither did the second, when his other fist swung forward with a force that sunk into Hog’s belly with a muffled thump.

“Fuck you! Ya great fat bastard, ya! Ruined everything! Don’t even care!”

“Rat,” Hog said, voice low with warning as he grabbed the boy’s fist out of the air the next time he swung at him…and then the other, when he tried to punch him yet again.

The younger junker twisted like a greased weasel in his grip, enough that Hog physically had to lift him upward to keep him at bay. And even then, it only earned him being kicked with a boot and a peg leg instead of with fists. It was starting to get annoying.

“Stop that.”

“Mei says I should talk to ya, so I did! Ya know why? ‘Cos she’s got a sweet and tender and fuzzy little heart, she does. Tried to tell her you’re not the sort what talks things out.” Rat flailed a boot and whomped him solidly in the ribs again. “But she said to try anyway, because she’s the best person in the world. Gave you a chance, I just did, and you didn’t even do anything with it!”

Hog stumbled back when a particularly vicious thrash threw him off balance. Behind him, something dented and then snapped, and there was a hissing noise and freezing cold water was spraying him in the back of the head. Apparently he had just broken the sink. Taking the opportunity, he whirled around and thrust Junkrat face-first right into the broken water jet. Maybe that would cool the boy’s temper.

“Rat!”

“WHHAHAWRGARBL!”

The now sopping rodent squirmed out of his grasp all at once, sliding to the opposite end of the room and glaring at him like an angry wet animal, back arched and eyes narrowed. Spitting water and flecks of foam from his lips, he faced down his much larger once-bodyguard, still bristling and aggressive.

“S’posed to protect me…my arse, ya shite excuse for a bodyguard. Let ya near kill me, all those times. Knew ya didn’t mean it, let it happen. That’s on me. But then ya hurt what’s mine. The…The one person in the world that I have, who never-!” Rat’s voice cracked, choking on his own words. He swallowed with a throaty noise and tried again. “Maybe I deserved it, but she damn sure doesn’t. And I was fuckin’ stupid enough to almost let it go, to let you ruin it all! Oughta kill you myself, I should!”

Roadhog was, as usual, silent for a long while. There was nothing but Junkrat’s labored, hissing breathing, and the gurgle of the broken pipes leaking water around their boots.

Finally he decided on what he wished to say. “…You and her all right?”

“Like you give a damn?!”

“…Yeah.”

Rat snorted water out of one nostril, wiping his dripping chin with his forearm. “Yeh. Eventually. Me and her got into it a bit at the bus station, but phwaw, the rest of that evening was a real to-do. Not in a good way, mind. Lots of yelling and crying and arguing and it all got a bit thick for my tastes, really.”

“Mm?”

“But yeh, think we’re all right. Getting better, I think. I hope. Getting sick of sleepin’ on that little couch in the lab, puts a real crick in the neck,” Rat grunted and popped his spine loudly for emphasis, the result of cramming himself on a too-small sofa for too many nights already. “Pillow’s no good, either. Makes me miss those tits- softest things in the world, got real spoiled by those tits. Can’t wait to burrow back in ‘em and never come up for air. Hope things get back to normal soon.”

“Hm…” Roadhog rumbled, that uneasy feeling returning. Not really about Mei’s tits, no, but his words. ‘Back to normal’. Junkrat had a new normal, and that normal was here, not tearing off back into the desert, after the man who had almost killed him. Even if the boy didn’t realize it himself, ‘back to normal’ included Overwatch, and Mei, and being here.

“Still can’t believe you went behind my back and fucked the big Russian dag after she just showed up in the middle of the bloody night in her trackie daks. Or have ya been fucking her this whole time, in secret? Can’t believe you’d-”

“Didn’t fuck her,” Hog frowned. “It’s not like that.”

“Saw you all up on each other, I did! Don’t deny it!”

Rat turned and looked for something to throw, settling on the only thing in the room- a roll of toilet paper on the wall nearby- before snatching it up and pitching it at the pig-masked man with all his strength. The cushiony roll of paper puffed gently against Roadhog’s shoulder before rolling down into the puddles below. Roadhog looked down at it, watching the white turn dark and wet as the moisture traveled up the paper.

“We didn’t do that,” he said.

“Guess she’d probably by one of the only ones here you could fuck, actually. Ya know, without killing ‘em,” Rat said, suddenly going from aggressive to thoughtful in one breath. “Mighta peeked in on her once or twice in the gym, on accident. Blimey, those legs- bet she could crush a watermelon with her thighs and barely notice it. Would ya eat watermelon from between her thighs, Roadie?”

“Rat…”

“What was I saying, again? Right, I was pissed at you, battering your own best mate and then going to run off with a lady instead of with me! Fuck you, Hog!”

Hog slumped his head forward wearily into his palm, massaging between his eyes. Arguing circles with Junkrat was a fool’s errand. Little wonder he bothered with it so rarely. If things weren’t in such dire straits, he wouldn’t have even tried. He shifted slightly, boots slopping in the growing mess of water and soggy toilet paper on the tiles below.

“I’m not leaving,” he finally said. “Thought about it. Decided not to.”

The younger junker tilted his head at that. “S’that so? Is that your decision, or did they tell ya not to? They reprogramming your brain?”

“No. Decided to stay. Here’s as good a place as any.”

“Mei said you’re getting therapy’d. She says a lot of folks do it. She’s done it too. Is it like in the shows? D’you lay down on a couch and cry and tell ‘em about your tragic past and then it all gets better?”

Hog thought of Dr. White and her many cats, and how she’d not asked him any such things, and how things had not gotten all better. “No.”

“D’you think I should get therapy’d?”

“Do you want to.”

“I dunno.”

The two junkers stared at one another. Junkrat muttered darkly to himself, lips screwing to one side as he gave Hog a look of very hard judgment.

“Is it going to make you stop beatin’ me up?” he asked. “Dunno if I trust all that fuddling around in people’s brainmeat, but if it can make you stop? Guess you don’t really remember what it’s like when you go bonkers, Roadie- but it’s a bit unnerving. It’s like you’re not my mate at all, just another drongo trying to kill me, like all the rest. Wish I coulda stopped it. Even if it’s not really you. Even if I know you don’t mean it.”

Ragged patches of yellow hair drooped wetly across Rat’s features, doing nothing for his looks. With another sputtering noise, he sniffed noisily and wiped a hand wetly down his face and slung away the droplets. He seemed to be in thought, as the pipes continued gurgling around them. Finally he turned on Hog once more. “Don’t wanna have to do any more of that ‘sorry’ stuff, though. Not like with Mei. Know she’s into that, but I don’t get it. Ugh, so don’t start apologizin’ at me, think that would just give me the skeevies. Feels weird, doesn’t it? All the ‘sorries’ folks use around here?”

At least that was something they could still agree on. Hog nodded. “Yeah.”

“Right?! Don’t tell Mei I said that, mind you. Although she’s doing better, with the whole…’me’…thing,” Rat said, rubbing the back of his head and causing one spike of hair to stick up strangely on the side. “Still getting used to this bit, when the arguing is for real. Guess it’s just part of having my own girl, d’you think? S’not like fighting with you. Less bruises, for one. But I think it’s a little the same? Maybe? I know she don’t mean it, either.”

Hog didn’t entirely know what to say, so said nothing. And that worked, since Rat was mercifully back to doing the talking.

“Getting used to there being so many bloody rules here. If it’s not Overwatch’s rules, it’s Mei’s rules, or Nan’s rules, or things they keep sayin’ like I’m supposed to already know it for some reason. Junkrat, don’t do that. Junkrat, you can’t do that in public. Junkrat, that’s not a toilet…Blimey, it’s not like I ain’t been trying? Guess Mei thought I was just supposed to be better by now. Guess I thought maybe you’d get better too. Heh. Turns out we’re all fucking idiots!”

“…”

“Then the Russian got involved, and well, I think it’s pretty clear where us two stand on our opinions of each other, eh? Then everything just exploded. Not in a way I like, not a good one. More like a building! Like everything just came all toppling down and there I am on the bottom floor, watching it all coming at me. Might have just been my bell still ringing from you locking me down and wailing on my face for a good few. Cracked a few face bones, the doc said!” He pointed to his cheek and orbital bone. “Gotta say, those were some prime good hits! Would be impressive if it wasn’t my face.”

Hog frowned.

“Gotta learn better aim, mate. Oh! I meant to ask you a thing?”

“Mm.”

“When you’re gone in the head, am I still me? You said that it’s not that, but how I can I be sure? Is it ‘cause of something I did? I’ve done lots of things. Can’t remember some of ‘em, but maybe it’s because of one of those?”

Roadhog shook his head slowly. “No. You’re not…you. Don’t know who you are. Don’t know who anybody is.”

“Huh. Guess that’s a little better, somehow. Mei said it’s no excuse, but it’s better. I always knew ya didn’t mean it. But I still wish ya wouldn’t do it at all,” Rat said, scratching at one tooth with his fingernail. “You should try harder.”

“Mm.”

“Still pissed, of course! Mostly at you, can’t really stay mad at Mei for long. Fuck, you really can’t stay mad at her. She looks up at you with those big brown eyes of hers, and they got little tears in ‘em, and… Blimey, it’s like getting mad at a puppy dog, or a panda. She’s not really like a panda, though. Because I read somewheres that pandas don’t even know how to fuck right, like they got to watch porn videos just to learn how to do it? That’s a real funny image, actually, heh! Heheheh! D’you think the pandas in the porn vids ever-”

“Rat.”

The younger junker blinked, going a little cross-eyed as his brain struggled to uncross whatever wires had tangled together in that skull of his. He shook his head quickly, jostling it clear. “Right, right, so, back on topic. Thought about this a lot. I’m docking points off your paycheck, for trying to kill me and all. Plus damages for wrecking the place, and nearly murdering my girlfriend. I uh…I might be persuaded to give you a little bonus for brawling with the Russian, that was a top show. But oof, these numbers! Real hefty! But I guess that’s just what ya owe me for all this nonsense.”

“That’s fair.”

“And if ya do it again…I ain’t gonna sit idly by. Not anymore. No more chances, mate.”

“Mmh,” Roadhog said. He could agree with that.

“Movin’ into the garage on the opposite side, by the by. Nan says I could stay in the main dorms, but eugh…don’t like that computer lady spying on me while I’m trying to take a shit, you know? Anyways, I already threw out all your stuff in that garage outside, out because I’m movin’ in there. Use my old room for whatever.”

“All right.”

Rat looked down at where the water was starting to bubble up and soak his single boot. “Also we’ve sort of fucked up the bathroom here, uh…Well, we’ve made some real strides, haven’t we! Maybe I’ll see ya round!”

Before Hog could move to stop him, the door had been pushed open and the young bomber had made his escape. With his peg nearly slipping on the flooded floors and leaving behind a trail with a single wet bootprint, Junkrat had turned the corner and was already gone. Hog was left rather befuddled, looking around at the broken porcelain and pipes and floating paper slog around him. For several long minutes he just stood there, even though the flood grew worse and he heard the faint drawl of McCree’s “What in tarnation?!” outside.

What an unfamiliar predicament, to be left wanting. For the first time in a very long while, Roadhog had had more to say.

But it was as Junkrat had said- maybe he’d see him around. At least there’d be a next time.

Even if he still wasn’t sure he deserved it, there would be a next time.

The door creaked open again, as the cowboy looked inside warily, around the completely ruined bathroom and the gigantic pig-masked man standing forlornly within. Guffawing around his cigar, he gestured his mechanical arm around the wreckage. “What the hell happened in here?”

Hog shrugged.

* * *

 

“…Do I even want to know why you’re soaking wet?” Mei leaned in her doorway and scrunched her nose, looking the sodden junker up and down. “Is that toilet paper stuck on your peg? Jamison, what-”

“Had a bit of a bingle in the boy’s room, if you must know! Hoggie was in there, down near the med offices. Guess you were right about him getting therapy’d. Figured it was good a time as any, so we had a discussion, him and me.” Junkrat looked down to the wet paper speared on his peg, lifting up on one foot and desperately trying to shake it off. It slopped wetly to and fro and didn’t even rip, which left him rather impressed. “Bloody hell, they got the good kind. The kind what’s not even half off at the penny saver. What is this, the quilted stuff?”

Mei did not seem as interested in toilet paper brands as he was. “You saw Mr. Roadhog? How did it go? I know I said that it’s okay to be mad, but I think it’s really good that he’s staying and he’s trying to keep to his new schedule so…I think it’s good that you talked to him. At least, I hope it went okay? Jamie, he didn’t dunk you in a toilet, did he? That’s not good, that’s-”

“Nah! We just had a bit of a scuffle. But yeah, we talked some. Hashed it out a bit. A little. Still pissed off at him, but no toilet-dunking was involved this time. Uh…We mighta broken a few things, but that’s just how junkers negotiate, love. Told him what was what but…not got much to say to him yet.”

“I think that’s fine. It takes time. It’s taken us time, but I’m glad,” she said. She reached out, gently taking his mechanical hand in hers as metal digits clicked and pressed around her much smaller ones. “I’m still so glad you came back. No matter how mad I was.”

“Gotta be honest, you throwin’ yourself in front of a bus for me is probably the most romantic thing what’s ever happened in my whole life. Gonna be hard pressed to up that one, darl. Can’t just be chockies and cards anymore, after that.”

“Throwing myself at a bus is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, thank you. I think fear of prosecution was the only thing that stopped that driver from running me down,” she said. “When we fight again, I am instituting a rule that we can’t involve buses.”

He swept behind her, drawing her arms up to cross atop her chest as he leaned down to nuzzle into her hair once more. “My brave girl. Let’s just not fight again, ever! Just always agree with what I’m sayin’ or doin’!”

“You wish,” she replied, shaking her head. “Do you think you and Mr. Roadhog are going to be friends again? I guess we all got so used to you two being together, it’s almost strange that you’re not.”

“Of course! Me and him, we’re true blue mates. Of course, I’m changing the stipulations on his contract to include ‘not murdering me or mine in a blind rage’ and all. Not much a bodyguard if he’s the one who’s beating me up. And with fees incurred, medical bills, property damages, council tax, and all that, that’s a hefty chunk out of the ol’ paycheck. Guess he’ll think twice next time.”

“Okay, yes. That. And it’s good that he’s seeing somebody. Although it’s also hard to imagine him really talking a lot,” she said thoughtfully. Her expression shifted a bit, brows knitting above her glasses. “It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. I hope he’s not angry at us. Or…You don’t think he hates me, for telling Ana-”

“Hate ya? Nobody hates you, sweets. And ol’ Roadie doesn’t bother with silent grudges. If he doesn’t like someone he just walks right up and kills ‘em! Nah, he seemed real…thoughtful, I guess? But it ain’t hate, I’ll tell ya now,” Rat snorted into her hair, leaning to mouth at the top of her ear, that little playful nipping he did to both irritate and comfort her all at the same time. “S’cute though, you worrying about us.”

She smiled and tilted her head up into his cheek, nuzzling against him. “I know, I know. I worry too much.”

His eyes lit up a little as she moved closer, biting the inside of his lips to keep from grinning. “Ya know, if you’re really worried about me, I’ve been sleeping something awful lately. All cold and forlorn on that little couch, all cricked in the neck, shivering by my lonesome. If only I could be in a bed, with something nice and warm and soft…”

Mei’s lips turned up a little on one side, unable to hide her smirk. She lifted a hand, swiftly shooing his face away when he leaned to start kissing at her neck. “I’ll think about it. Although I think we’ve both been doing a lot better, after we talked it over. Maybe I’ll make a decision during dinner. Why don’t we go out? Maybe that Mongolian barbecue place, and then a boba?”

“I’ll be on me best behavior!” he vowed, tightening his arms around her, more clingy than ever before. He tried again, kissing at the side of her jaw and throat, letting his flesh hand start inching down her collar bone, black nails slithering their tips beneath the fabric of her shirt. “Dinner and sweet teas, yes. Then how about you let ol’ Junkrat take your mind off all this other nonsense? All these pent-up emotions and shit you’re always talking about, s’not good for anyone. Let’s get so worn out that we forget why we were ever mad at each other, eh?”

To his surprise, she turned about in his arms. Her eyes half-lidded behind her glasses, pursing her little pale lips as she pressed up against him. The overflowing softness of her chest was practically smushed into his ribs, wrapping her own arms around him. Her voice was low and breathy. “Jamison…”

The synapses in his brain, once so focused on his unique method of trying to seduce her, suddenly misfired when it actually worked. A lump formed in his throat, and in other places. He swallowed it down with a gulp, a stupid grin spreading across his face as his cheeks and the tops of his ears flushed a very happy red. “Y-yeah?”

There was a little tug on his arms, and at her behest he leaned down towards her. She stood on her tiptoes, leaning up to trail a little kiss along his cheek and pausing just before they touched his ear. He held his breath, waiting-

“You still have toilet paper on your leg,” she whispered.

He blinked, looking down. He did. A wet mound of toilet paper was still speared onto his peg.

With a grin of her own, she withdrew her embrace from around him, leaving him dumbfounded. She turned about on her heel, flouncing back into her room, then glanced back at him as if she clearly expected him to follow. “Should we get ready?”

“Yeah! Yeah, wait for me!” He kicked and flailed his peg, the joint popping and squeaking frantically before the tissue paper finally broke free. Leaving it in a wad on the floor, he flung himself after her. “Coming, love!”

The door hissed shut behind them.

* * *

 

“You are doing so well! Go, Mako Rutledge! So good!”

“Rrr-hh”

“Hm?”

“Roadhog,” he reminded her, though he could barely wheeze his name. The filters of his mask were working overtime. He’d have to adjust and change them out later. He probably needed to wash it too, with the amounts of sweat that was pooling inside it, sealed against his scarred lips and chin.

His enormous fists clenched around the bar, though even the metal was starting to bend from the two comically huge black weights that had been attached to either end. He lay sprawled on his back, staring up at the bottom of Zarya’s chest and her grinning face above that, topped by that lash of bright pink hair. She had both hands under the bar, occasionally pressing to help keep it steady on either end.

“Roadhog, yes,” she said, correcting herself quickly. “Doing very well, Roadhog. A little more!”

He heaved upward with all his strength, arms shaking as they finally straightened and lifted the massive weight up into the air.

Zarya whooped in victory. “Hahaaa! Yes, you have done it!”

Grunting, he lowered the weighted bar, guided onto the hooks on the equipment to keep it from crushing his chest. It had been a while since he had actually done anything pertaining to a proper workout. Usually his workouts consisted of lifting metal scrap and old tires and other weights that he needed to simply get things done. As he had told her before, he had no idea what his weight records were. And really, he didn’t particularly care.

But she was writing it down on the board on the wall, as proud as if she had done it herself. She grinned at the number happily. “Even better than your last one! With practice, I believe you will beat the old man’s records. Who knows, perhaps one day you will beat my record-”

Hog waited for the other shoe to drop.

It did.

“My record from when I was twelve years old, sick, and asleep. Ha!” she finished, lifting both arms in a flexing pose and looking back at him like she had just truly burned him, grinning. “It is a joke, of course.”

She snickered to herself, clearly pleased at her own cleverness, and Hog decided not to tell her that the only other person who found their own jokes so hilarious was probably Junkrat. Instead he sat upward with a groan, groping for the towel and wiping at his sopping forehead. “Mmh…”

Zarya sat down opposite of him, holding out a water bottle. He took it, and she dutifully turned away as he lifted the bottom of his mask to drink greedily. She just sighed and lifted her chin thoughtfully. “You are doing all right?”

“Mm. Guess so. Mei and Rat are-”

“I am asking about you.”

He grumbled to himself, wiping away drips of water with his arm before lowering his mask. “Yeah. Doing all right. Mostly. Not used to…all this.”

“What part of it?” She glanced back, seeing his features were hidden once more before turning to face him.

“All of it. Still uneasy, not sure why. Rat settled in. Used the word ‘normal’ here.”

That made Zarya smirk a little. “I would not call Overwatch normal.”

“It’s his normal. But not mine.”

Roadhog’s normal was sand and fire. His normal was struggling to survive in a world that he had created, in the ashes of what he had destroyed. He dragged the weight of his shit decisions wherever he went, and some part of him couldn’t escape it. Even here, he would wake up halfway across the world, and he would still be back beneath the burnt ruins of his once-home.

“I cannot say,” Zarya admitted. “Maybe you should tell Dr. White of it, when you see her? I do not…always understand this place, myself. Very different from being in the army back home. Sometimes that is good. But sometimes bad.”

“Mm.”

“But I guess there is enough good here that it is worth sticking around. I have made friends here. Mei, for one. And she is a good one, worth protecting. And even the ones I do not like, like your Junkrat, I suppose he is worth protecting too…” Now it was her turn to grumble, folding her arms. “But I will protect him with massive grudge. Ugh.”

Hog snorted a half-chuckle. At least with all the upheaval lately, Zarya’s and Junkrat’s mutual dislike was a sort of comforting constant. “It’s fine.”

“You have spoken with Junkrat, then? Is he still angry? Mei is…still angry at me,” she sighed. “I do not like disappointing her. She looks at you with these upset, watery eyes. Ugh, is like spear through the chest.”

“…We destroyed a bathroom. But we talked. A little.”

“Is that why that hall was roped off with the mopping bots today? You junkers, I swear. But you talked, that is good! Mei and I have disagreed before, it always takes time until we are really friendly again. But she is still my friend always. I, um, I hope she agrees with that, sooner rather than later.”

“Mm.”

“What was my point? Ah. I am saying, you are not only one with troubles in Overwatch. They are used to such things here. It is all…how do you say, ‘ragtag’ group? I cannot tell you anything to make it easier. But I just want you to know, at least from me…that you are not the only one here. You are not alone. We are strong, and together we are even stronger. We will protect them. And the others. And you. You…are understanding me, yes?”

Zarya glanced up at him, and her eyes were the same color as his wife’s had been…almost. When he looked again, they were a little more blue-green than he had thought before. Not precisely the same color, then. Maybe if he kept looking-

“Come, you will help me with the other equipment.” she said. “I was thinking, maybe some cardio…”

“No.”

“You break my heart, Mako Rut-…Roadhog. Fine. Maybe we will make this a weekly thing? I ah, I like gym time with a partner, but nobody is able to keep up with me. Maybe after your talks with the doctor? It is a very good stress reliever, very helpful. And as I said, you are more interesting than I thought. I like to have you around. Ah, you know what I mean. What do you say?” She held out one hand, looking to him with an expectant hesitance. “Friends, you and I? We are good together, for now?”

He looked down at it, then held out his own, engulfing her hand in one massive palm as he shook.

“Yeah.”

She smiled at him, and things got a little better.

Maybe this would never be his new normal, his world. Some part of him would always be trapped beneath that house, beneath that tomb, in a tomb of his own. And perhaps he would never escape it, waking up to the reminder of what he had done, punishment well-deserved for his many, many crimes. He wasn’t sure that any amount of talking with Dr. White or anyone else would ever heal those wounds- those wounds that went all the way through, into the deepest parts of him.

But maybe they could help a little. Like scar tissue, closing the wound and leaving something ugly behind to remember them by. And these were scars he couldn’t forget. He didn’t want to forget. But maybe he could remember without it hurting so much, hurting until he could stand no more and started hurting everyone else in turn. Even the ones he was supposed to be protecting.

He would ask Dr. White about it. Maybe not next time. But eventually.

For now, he decided to focus on the task at hand. He’d always been good at that. And there were still things that needed to be done. Eventually Junkrat would be back with some mess or other, and they would talk again. There was going to be a next time. Mei still needed his protection, and perhaps if he did well enough, she would look at him again without fear. And Zarya’s strength would falter eventually, as strength always did, and she would need him there.

He still had a job to do. And Roadhog was many things, but he was not the sort of man who left a job unfinished.

“Hey,” he said.

Zarya looked at him.

He offered a little nod. “…Thanks.”

She smiled again. “It is no trouble, my friend. Now come, we still have some time left on our practice session! You think you are sweating now?! I will show you how to make you really sweat!…That is not in perverted manner! Sorry! I am saying it is time for leg lifts! Afterwards, I have made us protein shakes. You may choose vanilla or banana. You should choose banana, it is much better. Now, get on the mat! Get ready! One- two- !”

Hog sighed. At least he hadn’t expected all this to be easy.

But maybe it would be okay for now.

**Author's Note:**

> The first scene of this fic was inspired by a piece from batchygyo,  
> https://batchygyo.tumblr.com/post/159841521060/once-hog-got-too-mad-and-jamison-had-to-tie-him-up  
> The idea of poor Junkrat trying to control an enraged Hog, and then of course Mei and Zarya have to get involved.


End file.
